Will solarization kill bamboo?

General Schvantzkopf · 2008-05-04T20:33:31+00:00

My old garden (14'x60') has two problems, on the left side where I've been growing green vegetables I have a terrible bamboo problem. On the right side where I've been growing tomatoes I have a wilt problem. I have a new garden (15'x20') this year so I'm planning on letting at least part of my old garden lay fallow. I'm going to solarize the tomato side to kill the wilt pathogens. I've been using roundup on the bamboo but it's never been able to eliminate it. I was wondering if solarization would kill bamboo? It's supposed to be pretty effective against weeds as well as pathogens so it might work. On the other hand the bamboo might just punch it's way through the plastic.One more question about solarization in general, does it work in New England? The papers I see on the web are from UC Davis. Ma is a lot cooler than Ca. For solarization to work it needs to get the soil temperature pretty high, will it get high enough here?

May 04, 2008 33 Replies

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Charlie 18 years ago

Don't be pedantic and critical about someone's language usage, or intentional misuse, until you are certain that the person, with whom you are not familiar, doesn't know what they are about. :-)

Have you been reading the other thread about my eating carp and the resultant hilarity that is developing over carp being made into fertilizer? CharlieCarp, to be precise.

Thus.... carpie diem....playing with words with Billy, who knows what/who/when/where/why is what.

*Now* I am off to build fence. Charlie

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Omelet 18 years ago

Hm. Might try that on the main garden bed this year to finish killing out the bindweed and wild sunflower. I intend to ONLY container garden this year (except for Okra out front) so I could lay down heavy mil plastic and put the pots on top of that.

I won't have to weed! (happy dance!)

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Omelet 18 years ago

From another thread dear. ;-)

Seize the fish...

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Omelet 18 years ago

Catfish Diem?

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Billy 18 years ago

Now don't be down my good friend, you brought a lot of smiles to many faces today, faces that need as many smiles as they can get. Good on you, mi amigo.

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phorbin 18 years ago

No... that's Carpe Crappie.

or Carpe Piscis

...then there's Crappie Diem.

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Omelet 18 years ago

Nothing wrong with a good laugh. :-)

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Charlie 18 years ago

Not really, all in all it was a pretty good day. ;-)

Charlie

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CharlieCarp 18 years ago

:-) And seize the day we did, mon ami, indeed we did.

Not a thing wrong with some daily silliness to counter the unsilliness of the world. Glad I was able to serve some positive function. I only exist to serve. ;-)

Oh, BTW.....byte me Fran! ;-)

Charlie, who spent a good part of the day helping younger son set 4x4s for privacy fence. Digging a couple dozen three foot deep holes sounded like more than I wanted to do (manual post hole diggers are a bitch to run).....so we went and rented one them there gas powered gophers and made short work of tunneling. Likely prevented me from developing.........*CARP*al Tunnel.......

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Mary Fisher 18 years ago

...

I've been thinking about this reply. It seems to me that not only would you kill fungi, weeds and undesirable pests, you'd also kill fauna which you want. And weeds would re-establish themselves by seeding. It doesn't seem a good idea to me.

How long has it been practised?

I suppose if you have a lot of land it's practicable, providing you don't mind killing everything.

Mary

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Billy 18 years ago

You're right, if you simply removed the plastic and don't do anything else to the ground. But, once the ground has been sterilized, so to speak, you can either cover it in three or more inches of mulch, and plant what ever your little heart desires, or leave the plastic in place, and cut openings in it, where you wish to place your plants (good to install drip irrigation if you do this).

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