You are hereForums / No dig gardening / Preparing the ground / holes.. or not ,in plastic sheeting?!
holes.. or not ,in plastic sheeting?!
Hi there,
just a really basic query... I`m just embarking on the No Dig venture which i`m extremly inspired by and have just covered a lawn with cow and horse manure and plastic sheeting for the winter and without wanting to sound too dim, need to know whether to punch holes in the sheets for aeration and to keep the ground from drying out? Have ordered the no dig book which hasn`t arrived yet but can`t wait to get stuck into it!
Thanks a lot,
stephen
Tags
Good luck Stephen, it sounds a good start. No holes is best to exclude all light from grass and weeds below. But if your lawn is/was mostly lawn grass without too much couch grass and other perennial weeds, you could cut a few holes to let winter rain through: put squares of cardboard under the holes to prevent weeds growing through them. Then you can remove the plastic in late March/April/May for planting, perhaps roll it back in stages and remove all slugs you see when rolling it back or taking it off. I wonder how moist the soil is at present, if you are in south east Britain it may be on the dry side underneath, but the polythene will at least hold all moisture in.
Great, thanks Charles! I`m in cornwall so not that dry here, especially in winter. Luckily it`s just common garden lawn i`m covering... One more quick question.. does it matter that some of the muck i put down didn`t have many worms? Whilst it was by no means fresh manure, it wasn`t as old as it could ideally have been ( sort of yellow in places with rotting straw )? Will worms over the next 3 or 4 months move in anyway, regardless?
Thanks again,
Stephen
It will be fine. Manure in old heaps (and compost heaps) attracts red brandling worms which eat the part rotted manure and excrete worm compost. Yours was not quite at that stage so you did not see any brandlings, but it will be attractive to earthworms in the soil (lumbricus terrestris, different worm) who will be delighted to eat it when temperatures are high enough, and gradually it will be mixed into the improving soil below your plastic, with the worms creating a great structure of drainage and root channels.