To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Woven Ground Cover
Date: Sun, 05 Feb 2006 09:41:42 -0800
Richard,
I have used a few different black woven cloths. The lighter weight
fabric, smooth on both sides, must be pressed against the soil to 'suck'
the water through the cloth. A mulch is one way to do this, but the
mulch must be heavy enough to press the fabric against the soil
otherwise any water will just run off the cloth into the surrounding area.
The deWitt Pro 5 weed barrier (5 oz)has fuzz on the underside which is
supposed to 'reach down' to contact the soil. Water does seem to go
through this cloth better, but the hairs need to contact the soil.
There is also a deWitt 3 oz and 4.1 oz.
I tried to find their website but it is 'under construction'. If you
google 'dewitt company landscape fabrics' you'll get this discussion.
I think the lightweight fabric barriers are not worth the money. Weeds
do put their roots through the fabric and when you pull the weed out, it
leaves a hole in the fabric ideal for more weeds to grow and you must
cover with a mulch.
This does not happen with dewitt Pro 5. I have also left dewitt fabric
exposed to the sun for about ten summers (I roll it up and take it in
for the winter) and the fabric looks as good as new.
Why do I roll it up? Mostly to open up the hiding places for meadow mice
who would otherwise eat all the roots of my apple trees, but also to try
to extend its lifetime. We don't get much sun here in wintertime in fact
we've only seen the sun about three or four times since December 19 so
I'm not really protecting it from the sun.
If I have a block with no nursery trees, I leave the dewitt barrier out
all winter.
The problem with lifting it and putting it back is to get it back early
enough before the weeds start growing and late enough that the meadow
mice have found other food (grass roots). Once the trees are about 3-4
yrs old, I leave the weed cloth down all year.
If your trees are in rows, I'd be inclined to run a row of cloth down
each side rather than cut it up and put a piece around each tree.
The cloth comes in 3, 4, 6, 8, 10, etc., widths. I usually get the 4'
and cut it in half lengthwise.
Another thing I have done is run a length of dewitt down either side of
a row of nursery trees and use small boulders (fist-sized) and put them
on top of the cloth covering what would be the root area. This presses
the cloth to the soil in the area where the tree needs water. It also
hold the cloth down from the wind. In about November in south coastal
B.C., I pull up the cloth, the boulders roll off, and I roll up the
cloth and put it in the barn until next mid-March.
I do get a row of weeds between the two rows of cloth, but it is not
difficult to pull these out once or twice a season.
I use rodent bait traps too (pieces of 2" pipe with a tee and a cap on
the short end of the tee). These bait traps are not very good because
the rain gets in the long ends and wets the bait and it moulds.
This year I rolled short lengths of weed cloth around the long ends of
pipe in the hope that the rain would not get into the pipes. Now the
problem is that the crows keep pulling off these rolls of weedcloth. I
have all sorts of boulders piled on top of the weed cloth ends, but the
crows with much persistence still seem to be able to pull off the ends.
Farming is one big challenge to defeat the pests!
Derry
South coastal B.C. where we had one huge wind storm yesterday. I hope it
is the end of the longest wettest period on record. 29 of 31 days in
January had rain and we've had rain for the first five days of February.
I'm whining for sure!