Topic: Warming the Soil

[Mrs T]

Hello every one, another question I hope you may be able to help me with.
I think I have to warm up the soil before planting parsnip seeds.  I have put down a double thickness of white fleece I bought from Wilkinsons.  Will this do the job?
Thanks
Mrs T

[tim]

Know nothing about this but should it not be black?

[Mrs T]

I thought black was for supressing weeds, maybe I got it wrong?

[Robert_Brenchley]

Any colour will kill worms as long as it's opaque, but the blue stuff is best avoided at it breaks into little bits under ultraviolet and it's a real pain to get rid of. Fleece will warm soil, which is how it functions, but I suspect black plastic might do it better if you don't have anything in. Black absorbs heat far better than white!

[Mrs T]

Robert - You did mean weeds didn't you, not worms, I dont want to kill worms, they are my friends!

[Robert_Brenchley]

How on earth did I manage to write worms? I'm normally more careful than that; if I put a bloomer like that on the board with a difficult class, I'll never hear the last of it!

[SMP1704]

Mrs T, I think clear or black plastic or fleece will warm the soil.  Obviously choose a warm day to lay over the soil, otherwise you will just trap in the cold.

The books I read last year recommended clear plastic - just a well since OH had metres of the stuff left over from a marine job.  It was excellent at drying the soil (and my clay needed all the help it could get!) and I could see from the condensation that some warming action was going on, but the thing the book didn't mention was that it would propagate a fine crop of weeds.

In one way a good thing as I oiked them out before sowing the seeds.......on the other, I thought I had weeded the bed >:( >:(

I now regard weeding like washing or ironing - no matter how often you do it, it is never done :'(

[OliveOil]

Was told clear plastic was better at warming soil that black... or did i get that wrong too SS???

[saddad]

I agree with the weeding, treat as free green manure and keep turning them in!
 ;D

[cornykev]

Robert you had me worried I read it ten times and worms kept stairing me in the face, detention for you sonny.   ;D ;D ;D

[kitten]

I was hoping to use a polythene tunnel thing like a long cloche to warm our soil.  The ones i've seen are clear polythene.  I'm hoping this will work for us! x

[cornykev]

Should be fine kitten I'll be using one. ;D ;D ;D

[cambourne7]

I have planned to use some of the ridgid plastic sheeting i have over 3ft high wooden frame that streches over the bed to start to warm up the beds.

( Then i plan on leaving it over one for chillis, tomatos and pepers :-)

[cacran]

I have inherited a couple of old patio doors on the allotment. The last guy has left them there. Didn't know what to do with them. If I layed them on the soil, would that do the warming up trick?

[manicscousers]

make brill cold frames, cacran, if they've got glass in, of course  :)

[saddad]

Raise them on two or three layers of brick Cacran and you have a cold frame to die for!
 ;D

[cacran]

Oh, I have a lot of bricks so will give that a go. I am not sure how I would manage to lift the heavy doors on a regular basis, for watering and stuff. Anyone got any sollutions to that?