My GardeningWithout Cultivation Experiment(Part 1)

Dateline: 3 June 2014

Last month I blogged here about Tom Doyle's "Plant & Pick" Vegetable Gardening System. I mentioned that he wrote a book about gardening by planting in rows of small holes in large sheets of black plastic. I finally got a copy of the booklet and I'll post a review of it here soon. But before I received the book I went ahead and bought a roll of 12-foot-wide Long Lasting Plastic Mulch to try making some permanent plastic-covered sections in my garden. 

The picture above shows the first piece of plastic going down. I dug a 6" trench around the perimeter to bury the edges of the plastic. Where the plastic came up to my sheet metal walkway, I just tucked it under the metal.

The picture above shows the first sheet of plastic mulch in place. It is 10' 6" wide and about 30' long.

I spaced the three plastic-covered sections apart 12". That Fiskars flat-blade shovel visible in the above picture is the tool I used to dig the perimeter trench for burying the plastic edges.

I've learned from previous experience with this woven plastic that if it is cut with a knife it frays. It has to be cut with heat so the edges melt. I used a propane torch to heat up a 3" diameter biscuit cutter to make the rows of planting holes. The plastic has lines on it, which help with keeping the rows of holes straight. I used little sticks of wood, as shown above, to help space the holes at 12" on center. Melting holes with a biscuit cutter and torch is tedious.

The rows of holes are spaced around 28" apart. I have five rows of holes per sheet of plastic. 

I will keep you updated on how this idea works.