Watering through weed membrane.....

[Newton]

Is it possible to water through weed membrane? Are some types better for this? Do you have to water more often and does the water penetrate the membrane sufficiently?

I was thinking of planting all of my brassicas throu it? Anyone got any experience of growing this way?

[hollychap]

i planted my broad beans last year like that , i was not impressd it was a nice comfy blanket for slugs and beetles i will do the weeding this year

[hollychap]

forgot to say i just watered at the base of the plants but water will go through

[Kaiya]

I have the woven water permeable material on over winterering raised beds without edges, and it does a very good job of sheding the water off. I'm not convinced I'd use it around plants without mulch on top to both allow the water to sit and percolate through and not result in a plant sitting in a puddle.

[donnakebab]

i planted my broad beans last year like that , i was not impressd it was a nice comfy blanket for slugs and beetles i will do the weeding this year

I wondered about this myself. I planted my strawberries through weed suppressing fabric last year and water does run off so you have to water at the base of the plant. Next time I go to lottie I'm going to check under it to see what's lurking.If it's slugs and stuff then I'm going to take it up.

[Newton]

It's looking pretty negative so far........

[Florence Fennel]

I've tried it, don't like it, slug magnet, but a colleague of mine swears by it

[Kaiya]

Re: slugs - not an issue so far for me, it'll be interesting to see what happens over time (see slug note at bottom of story). I have a 9x6m allotment (~1/4 allotment) and covered 75% of it in membrane, with fresh horse manure under certain parts. I only didn't cover the last 25% because I thought it was North facing and was using it to stand on. Turns out it's South facing and I will now be growing in it instead

Links provided as text to copy and paste into your address bar in case the clicky links don't work.

Starting point
http://kailyn.co.uk/wp-content/uploa...ot-outline.png
Sept '11 - Shows outline and weeds.

Ready for covering, NOT dug
http://kailyn.co.uk/wp-content/uploa...d-IMAG0910.jpg
Sept '11 - I just recut the bed edges and chucked that into the middle to raise the bed - no digging in the middle of the bed. There are sooooo many marigold seeds in the soil, they are going to come back to haunt me!

Ready for winter
http://kailyn.co.uk/wp-content/uploa...d-IMAG0979.jpg
Oct '11 - Wasn't October lovely?

Overwintered veg in
http://kailyn.co.uk/wp-content/uploa...d-IMAG1158.jpg
Nov '11 - Pulled back sections to plant broadies and onions etc. Halfheartedly mulched them with oak leaves and soggy grass clippings. Beans got hit, but are growing back now.

Now
http://kailyn.co.uk/wp-content/uploa...d-IMAG1371.jpg
Feb '12 - Starting to uncover areas to plant, and covered the far corner for weeding later on (to kill/damage weeds in the mean time).

As you can hopefully see (with the eye of faith? bad camera) I've uncovered the corner nearest the camera, moving one sheet up to the far corner and folding the other bit over on itself. Under all of that I found 2 small stripey slugs and one rather stunned caterpillar. I think because it sheds water, it's not the moist haven it should be. The soil underneath isn't dry as it stops evaporation, but it's not wet either. Where it was covered and manured over winter the worms are prolific in the top 2-4 inches of soil, whereas in the uncovered areas they are rare up to 4-6 inches. I haven't dug in the covered but un-manured root beds yet to assess wormage.

I also found some ladybirds, though not clear if they spent the whole winter under there or have just emerged to sit under there while they wait for the weather to sort itself out.

So in summary - I like it for weed suppression and it appears to have stopped clay forming a pan, but if I want rain to get to the soil a biological mulch is better.

[zazen999]

What I do with brassicas; grow in modules and then in 3 inch pots, to stomp the ground down, plant with bulb planter and add a handful of eggshells in the bottom of the hole - firm soil back in and then once watered - mulch heavily with straw and add more as they grow. I love my clay though, which other people don't seem to enjoy.