You Can’t Send Back Your Soils And Weeds: Tarping The Problems You’re Served

It’s difficult to have cold, wet soils when you’re hungry to plant. Laying down tarps in fall and holding overwinter can help get beds planted earlier in spring. How can tarping help shift the timing of your plantings and start to draw down weeds? Maryellen Sheehan and Matthew Robinson (Hartwood Farm – Chittenango, NY) shared how tarps have turned into “raincoats” for their silty soil and how they are prioritizing crops for tarping on their 5 acres of vegetables. David McDaniel (Earth Dharma Farm – Jackson, ME) will discuss how fall bed preparation and overwinter tarping sets up their spinach successions for the following year, which weeds have faded away and which ones persist. It’s not easy to secure tarps when they’re applied for months at a time; we also talked about lessons learned in keeping tarps down and the logistics of management on larger fields.