It's interesting how what works in one person's garden does not necessarily work in another's. I've tried plastic several times and never had satisfactory results. Don't get me wrong - I wanted to like it! I wanted it to work. Who wouldn't like the promise of less weeding, fewer pests, and increased yields? It just never seems to turn out that way for me. It had been several years since I used plastic, so I decided to try it again last year for all my warm season crops. Here are my observations based on MY garden (yours may be different): 1) Fairly easy to install. A bit tricky to get it tucked in nice and tight around the edges of the beds as is recommended, but it only needs to be done once. Overall, less work than other mulches. 2) Difficult to control moisture! I know one of the promises of plastic mulch is that it conserves water, but I found it difficult to keep the soil moist, despite adequate rainfall AND me sticking the hose under the plastic at least once each week. I'm sure a soaker hose would work better, but our water is extremely hard and full of iron, so it would foul up a soaker hose in no time flat. So at least once per week all summer, I would turn the hose to a moderate trickle and stick it under the plastic, positioning it between plants so as not to erode the soil around the roots. Move it every 15 minutes or so, when the soil was good and damp. My hope was that capillary action would help transport water around so plants did not have to be watered individually. Unfortunately, whenever I peeled back the mulch a few days later, the result was always the same... dry, dry DRY! 3) No apparent improvement with regard to pests. In fact, squash bugs were even worse last year. Not sure if this has anything to do with the plastic, but.. 4) No early ripening of fruits. In fact, tomatoes were later than ever. Then again, many gardeners in the Northeast reported this last year though, so I'm not blaming the plastic. My theory is that the heat wave we had in June sterilized the first round of blossoms, so we all had to wait until Round 2. 5) Black plastic definitely attracts snakes. This could be good or bad, depending on what variety of snakes we're talking about and how you feel about them. I saw them lounging on the plastic frequently and found numerous snake skins under the plastic at the end of the season. I can accept the snakes (in my case all harmless garters), but not being able to control (or easily monitor) moisture was a real problem for me. Again, your mileage may vary. This is just my experience.

I have used black plastic for the past several years and love it. You can either do as denninmi stated, or what i do is after a rain storm I walk around with a pointy stick and see where the water pools up and just poke holes in the pastic, has worked just fine. In my garden, the black plastic actually allows me to water less than I would otherwise due to the fact that it holds the moisture in. As far as slugs - I still have some slug issues, but not a ton. It does cook some both on top and under, but at night when it's cool, they still make it across to the veges once in awhile. As far as other products that are breathable, I have tried some and i don't like them for a few reasons. The main one being is they don't work very well as a weed barrier (weeds will still grow up and through them. In addition, while they do warm the soil some, they don't quite as much as the black plastic (using the wife's meat thermometer - shhh don't tell her!- it was a difference of almost 10 degrees in the spring time). My 5 cents :)

Appreciate your willingness to listen Luke. I linked a great FAQ from the Composting forum on the Microherd and all that they do for us in the garden. And no, you don't need to be hot and heavy into composting to derive benefits from them assuming you garden sol has the normal amount of organic matter in it. The culprits are lack of oxygen and the heat. As Sue said the soil temps are surprisingly high under that black plastic, especially in the warmer zones, and the oxygen levels are markedly reduced as well. And long before the soil temps and low O2 cook and kill the beasties, the temps have rendered them dormant, inactive, so all those benefits we derive from them are lost. So soil temp monitoring is very informative, both for planting times and for keeping your own garden herd happy and productive. Not to mention the benefits to the plant roots. If you are far north zone 5 you may be able to use the landscaping fabric longer than many of us can but several factors like soil composition, sun exposure, and watering regimen can affect it quickly so soil temp monitoring pays off in increased production and over-all healthier plants. I hope this info is helpful to you. Dave Here is a link that might be useful: Who and what is the 'Microherd'?

Well I ordered the IRT 100 from Fedco today. I ordered 2 4ftx50 ft rolls since the shipping was almost as much as 1 roll! 20.20 shipped for 100 ft of the IRT isn't too bad in my opinion. The big roll of the thicker black plastic at HD is more than that. Now I just need for the 12" of snow and ice to melt so I can start getting my beds built and go pick up some compost from a local horse farm that responded to my Craigslist ad. Still to do: Figure out what to plant where Build beds Pick up many yards of compost from local horse farm Fill Beds Buy Drip Irrigation Setup Install Drip Irrigation Modify SWCs for Auto Watering System Learn how to Can & Preserve Veggies Reap the harvest all year long!