I hate weeding my garden. I shouldn’t say hate, once I’m out there, if I have the time, I do enjoy the tidy look of it when I’m finished. But summers in Alaska are short, summer lists of activities and to do’s are long, and I rarely have time to sit and enjoy the weeding. I just want it done so I have one less thing to do.

I am a not a purist when it comes to gardening. I till my ground every year (it keeps the slugs down by killing the eggs), and I don’t mind putting down plastic weed barrier, which also has more than 1 job. Not only does it keep the weeds down, but it’s black, so it heats up the soil a little better. Here in Alaska that is the biggest gardening battle, cold soil. The soil on the top 2 inches may get above 50 degrees F, but below the 2 inches, it’ll be in the mid to high 30’s even during the summer months.

So this past winter, I ordered a really big roll of plastic weed barrier. What I didn’t take into account when I ordered it though, was that we’d expanded the width of the garden by about 10 feet all the way across last summer, making our garden about 30 feet by 80 feet, about 2,400 square feet. I got enough weed barrier for about 1,600 square feet (20×80 feet).

I decided to use the plastic on the above ground items, the onions and beets, and then just cover as much of the potato patch as possible. We create mounded rows in our garden that helps to elevate the ground temperature a little bit, getting it into the mid to high 40’s. I then covered the mounds with the plastic and burned holes in it where I wanted plants.

I was slightly worried about watering, I don’t have time to hand water 1000 holes, so I just hoped that the water from the sprinkler would get into the holes enough (everything was an experiment this year!), because it seemed to just run off the plastic. Now I realize it’s actually allowing more water through it than I had thought.

I decided my potato patch would be the experiment – would the plastic actually make that much difference? Because if not, it is kind of expensive and I didn’t want to order more. But if so, I would make an effort to get more for next year. And the results?

A huge difference. The potatoes planted under the plastic came up in about 1 week, while the potatoes not covered took almost 2 weeks just for the first few to start popping up. The potatoes under the plastic have had almost 100% of the plants grow (I think there’s 2 empty holes), while I am still waiting for some of the potatoes to come up in the other half of the patch, almost 1 month after planting.

The plants that are growing with the plastic are now at least twice the size of the biggest plants on the uncovered side, and the potatoes that are covered are overall close to 3 times as big as the majority of the uncovered ones. We had an unusually cool spring, and my husband was finding frost just 9 inches below the ground, that was 2 feet thick, the first week of June. I’m sure the extra heat the soil is absorbing from the black plastic is helping quite a bit.

I still have weeds. There are plants, like carrots that are hard to cover with plastic as you’d have to slit down the entire length so the carrots could get sun, so there’s really no point. That row still requires a lot of weeding, which isn’t getting done soon enough. But, overall, everywhere that is covered has hardly any weeds.

Nothing is going to be fool proof, or weed proof I should say, but if I can cut down by more than 1/2, I’m happy. I also put sawdust down some of the aisles to keep weeds out of the walkways, but I haven’t gotten that far on the potatoes I’ve covered. I wanted to wait a bit so there’s as much solar gain as far down the mounds and plastic as possible. We’ll see if I get to it at all!

I purchased my plastic from Farmer’s Friend. I ordered it in February I believe, and it took until April to get here. Probably because it was 4 feet long and fairly heavy. If you’re in Alaska, order early so there’s plenty of time to get it! I know that I can buy it here in Alaska as well, but it was cheaper, even with shipping, ordering it online.

I also liked that it had lines on it, one down the middle, and one either side, about 9 inches from the center. This was handy for making my rows a little bit straighter anyway. This was a good experiment. It’ll help me adjust for my future gardens. It’s also heavy enough plastic that I should be able to save it for several years.

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