Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 (Tek) 9/26/83; site hercules.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!floyd!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!tektronix!teklds!hercules!archiel
From: archiel@hercules.UUCP (Archie Lachner)
Newsgroups: net.garden
Subject: use of black plastic sheeting
Message-ID: <139@hercules.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 12-Mar-84 12:42:41 EST
Article-I.D.: hercules.139
Posted: Mon Mar 12 12:42:41 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 14-Mar-84 09:13:03 EST
Organization: Tektronix, Beaverton OR
Lines: 30


     I recently read an article in a gardening magazine describing a garden
made of raised rows covered with black plastic sheets.  A drip irrigation
system was installed under the plastic, and holes were cut for the plants to
grow through.  The object of this was to create a low-maintenance-time
high-productivity vegetable garden.
     There is one problem that the article did not address, slug and snail
control.  We live in the slug capital of the country, Oregon's Willamette
Valley, and keeping the slugs from eating the vegetables before we get a
chance is a constant battle.  One possibility would be to put slug bait under
the plastic when it was put down.  This doesn't sound good to me, since the
irrigation system would dissolve the pellets and spread the poison to the
plant roots, etc.  Another method would be to use Deadline on top of the
plastic around all of the plants.  This would work well for slugs above the
plastic, but not for those that might get underneath it by hatching there or
some other means.
     Does anybody have any other suggestions?  Please respond to the net.
Thanks in advance.

				Archie Lachner

uucp:    {ucbvax,decvax,pur-ee,cbosg,ihnss}!tektronix!teklds!archiel
CSnet:   archiel@tek
ARPAnet: archiel.tek@rand-relay
-- 

				Archie Lachner

uucp:    {ucbvax,decvax,pur-ee,cbosg,ihnss}!tektronix!teklds!archiel
CSnet:   archiel@tek
ARPAnet: archiel.tek@rand-relay