Storey's Basic Country Skills by John Storey

Author:John Storey
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Publisher: Storey Publishing, LLC
Published: 1999-03-24T16:00:00+00:00

Covering the soil with plastic for several weeks can eliminate many harmful pests.

—from The Big Book of Gardening Skills

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Using the Sun to Control Insects and Diseases

If there were a sure way to destroy virtually every kind of harmful insect egg and larva in your garden soil, would you be interested? How about if the process were easy, cheap, and carried a host of other benefits along with it?

Soil solarization is a simple, five-step process that kills insects, nematodes, harmful fungi, and weed seeds, and eliminates plant diseases. At the same time, helpful microorganisms within the soil apparently benefit, possibly from the lack of competition. Soil that has been solarized allows plants to draw on nutrients, especially nitrogen, calcium, and magnesium, more readily. Seeds germinate more quickly. Plants grow faster and stronger, often maturing earlier with substantially higher yields, than in unsolarized soil.

Solarization works in the same way as a greenhouse. A transparent covering, in this case 6 mm or 8 mm plastic sheeting, traps the sun’s heat. After several days of sunshine, soil temperatures rise to as high as 140°F at the soil surface and well over 100°F as far down as 18 inches. It takes four to six weeks of sunny weather to pasteurize the soil. For most of the country, that means spreading plastic somewhere between the end of June and the first of September. To solarize your soil, follow the five easy steps at left.

—from The Big Book of Gardening Skills

COMPANION PLANTING WITH HERBS

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