Landscape fabric to make life easier

Having had quite an awful year garden wise last year, I have decided that this year I will use landscape fabric on quite a lot of the garden to plant through (sunflowers, dahlias, lavatera, marigolds, calendula, zinnia mostly) and allow me to try and enjoy the garden without being overwhelmed with weeds etc.

At the back of the garden, I have a sort of veggie plot, which today I have turned over ready to start planting up soon. Toward the back will be sweetcorn (and maybe some sunflowers) with leeks and onions in front (or at least that is the plan) - I wasn't going to use fabric on this area initially, but I am now considering it. The worry is, could I plant leeks and onions thorough the fabric successfully? The seedlings are, as you'd expect, tiny - would the fabric create too much heat for them?

 

I have used membrane for at least 15 years. I use it in the veg plot and have covered the whole area- about half of an allotment.

For planting I cut an X in the membrane about 4" - 5" for each of the two cuts. That leaves four triangles that I fold back under the membrane and it leaves a square section of ground open. I'm sorry but I don't know what membrane I bought as I bought it from a local nursery and it was what they use. It doesn't fray and the original membrane is still performing well. Each Autumn I just roll it back, pull out the very few weeds (usually things like bindweed), add compost and roll it back and pin it down. Over the years some of the pins that I originally made for it have disappeared (through carelessness) and I now buy metal tent pegs instead.

One of my neighbours doesn't grow veg or annuals and just has trees and shrubs. He covered all his beds with membrane and then spread bark on top. He, almost, never has to do any weeding. Just the occasional one that pops up in the bark.

I'll see whether I can phone the nursery (if I can remember the name) and find out the make. I virtually never go that way and they're just over ten miles away.

 

Thanks for the replies

I have already laid some membrane, and I'm afraid that it will be annuals that is going through it - thing is, even if I do the large area at the back, I doubt I will use more than a roll and a half maybe two rolls... at £20 or so for a roll, it seems like an absolute bargain. Some weeds I can deal with, but I am still playing catch up really as the garden has never been right since 2017 with brambles and loganberry being one of the biggest problems... no matter how often I seem to knock them back, they reappear, so I am hoping that excluding the light will at the least significantly reduce the amount and let me keep up.

If I can plant through the same holes again next spring, then great - if not, I don't really have any issue lifting it and replacing it as I am not exactly using tons. To be fair, I may even lift it come winter anyway as I have potentially secured a good source of rotted horse manure from a friend who will deliver, so I would lift the fabric and get that on the ground to overwinter?

The fabric I am using doesn't seem to fray so far, so fingers crossed...

For the likes of leeks and onions, I am thinking that rather than a cross it would be better to cut a longer slit to allow a row to be planted?

 

I was thinking more to suppress them just enough to let me grow this year and then hit them with SBK at the end of the year? We have already defeated them right back and yesterday turned the whole area over using the electric tiller:



Still needs raking etc. you can just see the remnants of the loganberry at the back against the fence, so I know it will grow again this year. Trouble is, I can't use SBK and then plant stuff as it needs 6 weeks at least for it to degrade.

The membrane does look as though it is going to be an advantage



Still got this side to do

 

We have virtually no slugs at all in our veg plot so it seems to keep them away.

 

We have had some rain in the 15 years

 

I get a lot of slugs and snails under mine. Down the allotment I get slow worms underneath too so I am wary about treading on them.