Quoted By:
I finally dropped some cash on a big roll of 6mil black plastic to do soil solarization. I put it down immediately after a really long storm so that the soil was saturated. I also watered the soil a bit extra. There's a layer of black plastic with a layer of clear plastic on it. Things are partially cloudy but the surface temps are around 150F/65.5C. I made sure to use plastic large enough to cover the entire wall of the raised bed. That should help increase temps to whatever the max can be for my weather and time of year. I need to get a reusable turkey thermometer to see what the temps are x distance into the soil. Soil temps need to be about 131F/55C to kill off the seeds, pests, and fungi. If I can get surface temps up another 10 degrees I can start cooking food with it.
I added sand, mixed the soil, and a couple weeks later a mat of weed seeds had started sprouting (mostly my edibles like lambs quarter, purslane, redroot pigweed, bidens, etc). I didn't disturb the soil again when I laid the plastic over the weed seeds. I'll probably leave this on for a month then replant plant garlic. I'll make sure to report how well this works on weed seeds.
