Allotments 4 All
Allotment Stuff => The Basics => Topic started by: cambourne7 on December 29, 2017, 22:30:47
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Hi All,
Now i have the famous blue hoops on my vegi trugs i would like to get some plastic sleeting in for Late Jan to help warm the soil up.
Any recomendations on buying a roll of plastic that will be suitable to help act as a closh? The vegi trugs are about 10ft long and 3ft wide but with the girth of the blue pipe i prob need at least twice this width.
advice welcome with thanks in advance
Cam
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Have a look here
https://www.visqueen.com/products/temporary-protection/visqueen-clear-tps (https://www.visqueen.com/products/temporary-protection/visqueen-clear-tps)
It is a leader in plastic sheeting and there are lots of varieties to choose from, and most building merchants stock it so is relatively easy to pick up locally.
I would possibly go for a transparent 500g grade as this could double as membrane to do what you want but would also double as a transparent tunnel/ cloche.
Have a look around the site and see what they have to offer then decide for yourself
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It depends on how long you want the sheets to last - there is a trade off here between thickness, lifetime and resistance to dirt.
It's nice to have clean plastic, and one way is to use the thinnest stuff that you throw away when it is dirty - but it gets wrinkly, and that means it tends to get dirty quicker (trails about more, dirt doesn't roll off, isn't washed so efficiently by the rain, difficult to wash by hand - I don't know, it just gets dirtier).
There's no point having thick plastic (500 gauge +) that isn't UV stabilised, it doesn't last long enough to get dirty but it can start to flake in one place before it tears, and the flakes get everywhere. Clear tarps seem like a good idea but the cheaper grades are designed to go in a skip after one job and if they don't say UV stabilised they can turn into a net in one season
At the other extreme is the double stabilised stuff from Spain - brilliant for polytunnels but I'm not sure you can get it thinner than 800 gauge.
Cheers.
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To warm the soil I would put any black plastic sheeting/weed retardant you can get directly on the soil. This will warm the soil and keep weeds down, then put your clear plastic or environmesh over the hoops when you set seeds or plant. :sunny:
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To warm the soil I would put any black plastic sheeting/weed retardant you can get directly on the soil. This will warm the soil and keep weeds down, then put your clear plastic or environmesh over the hoops when you set seeds or plant. :sunny:
Yes have black membrane down with layers of paper under to let the worms break it down. The beds are in a bit on a wind tunnel during winter and some in shadow of the house part of the day and north facing so sun limited anyway. Using the plastic to help keep the wind off the soil mainly which is robbing the heat it does build up (there vegi trugs so lifted off ground).
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Thanks Tee Gee and Vinlander i think i want something thats going to last a few months and then happy to bin with the stong winds in the fens not sure paying for expensive stuff is practical if its going to be shreded by the wind. That said not done this before on this site so lots of guess work and might decide on more expensive stuff later.
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Thanks Tee Gee and Vinlander i think i want something thats going to last a few months and then happy to bin with the stong winds in the fens not sure paying for expensive stuff is practical if its going to be shreded by the wind. That said not done this before on this site so lots of guess work and might decide on more expensive stuff later.
Strength is another trade-off - to guarantee it will last that long requires strong sheeting AND a strong frame & anchorage.
Think of the frame as camera and the sheet as film (an unintended pun!). It's pointless to skimp on the former when the latter running costs will eventually cost more, whether you get weeks out of the cheap stuff or years out of the expensive stuff - and don't forget P&P charges should push you away from short term solutions.
Fortunately digital cameras sidestep this deadlock, not many other things work that way.
Cheers.