Allotments 4 All

Half of our lottie is uncultivated yet (we're waiting for the committee to come and remove a large tree root from that side) and the weeds are rampant so we're going to cover the whole side with tarpaulins until we're ready to start that bit.  But I know I've read somewhere not to use blue tarpaulins and that seems to be all we can find locally (and cheaply). What is it with the blue that makes them unsuitable????

Hi Yarns.
Can't find any reason for not using blue tarpaulin as ground cover, have used it myself many times, tried looking it up on google to find anything against using it and found nothing.
Bob

maybe they just think green or black is less obtrusive.... but I'm sure blue is better than knee high weeds!

Blue tarpaulin lets the light through so wont supress weeds as well as the proper weed control stuff. Will be better than nothing though.

Try here http://www.allplas.co.uk/acatalog/Woven_105gsm_Weed_Control_Fabric.html#a328

we used one under our shed and part of the path, if it's heavy enough, it should work on weeds  :)

Somebody here suggested tarpaulins-togo.co.uk. Cheap!

I don't know where hubby got them from, he can't remember  ::), but there are some blue tarpaulins out there that are green on the underside. I'll look to see if there's a label on Monday when I go to work.

Linda

The only thing i can think of is water birds might try and land on it causing injury to themselves, thinking it's water.

A multi-story car park near me painted it's top floor blue and when the migrating geese(i think that was the bird) started hurting themselves they had to paint it a different colour.

Neil

Quote from: nilly71 on July 19, 2009, 21:51:19
The only thing i can think of is water birds might try and land on it causing injury to themselves, thinking it's water.

A multi-story car park near me painted it's top floor blue and when the migrating geese(i think that was the bird) started hurting themselves they had to paint it a different colour.

Neil

it's also why sea-birds crap on shiny cars, they reflect the sky, and look like water !!

Quote from: lewic on July 19, 2009, 09:01:27
Blue tarpaulin lets the light through so wont supress weeds as well as the proper weed control stuff. Will be better than nothing though.

You might have a point there, but if it does let a bit of light through you could always lay sheets of newspaper or cardboard down underneath the tarp so that way the light would definietly be blocked out

They're OK for short-term use, but be careful. Blue plastic is vulnerable to UV, and will disintegrate. If you don't want to be picking bits of blue plastic out of your garden for evermore, don't leave it down too long!

Not a label anywhere on the reversible one - but we now think it came from a local hardware supplier called Austen & Co. which only have branches down in Sussex.

Sorry..........

Linda

Thanks for your help.  We went and checked out local suppliers and all we could find were the blue ones - we bought one and will let you know how it works - it's not very thick so it might let a bit of light through.  We'll try and get some better ones for the rest of the plot. Anything has to be better than facing all those weeds though!

I have had a blue tarpaulin on a patch of plot which was heavily infested with bindweed for 3 1/2 years. The bind weed and a few other things such as nettle and docks have survived underneath for all that time.

There were two blue tarps on my plot when I took it over, neither had suppressed anything underneath and had been down for years apparently.....thick black plastic works much better!

Welcome to A4A both
Infradig and Mysteriousyarns...  :)