Do Barriers Work?
mdbamboo
11 years ago
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mdbamboo
11 years agoRelated Discussions
Planting beans next to tomatoes - Do I need a barrier?
Comments (8)The thing to remember with most companion planting do's and dont's is that very few, if any, have actually been scientifically tested. The evidence is purely anecdotal and is at worst based on old wives tales at best, peoples experience in their own garden. Not to say that people are wrong, or that they didn't experience what they did, but keep in mind that what works for them may not always work for you and vice versa. That is not to say companion planting is all hogwash and should be tossed, I still follow it as a general guideline when planning my garden. What they used to tell me in the Army though was "a guideline is not a regulation" and so I look at it that way with my garden. The only real problem I could foresee with planting beans cucumbers and tomatoes is that beans and cucumbers are viney climbers and may decide to use your tomato as a trellis and possibly choking it out. I have grown cucumbers and tomatoes together before and neither suffered any bad effects from it. The cukes did sort of start climbing on the tomatoes but not enough to really effect the tomato in any way. The only problem I have had with it is the tomato being so big I couldn't see all the cucumbers hiding in there! I say, all things being equal, go ahead and try it. If it doesn't work then you have learned that, if it does, then you'll be glad you shucked Wikipedia's advice and tried something new....See MoreMulch and Weed Barriers - whaddya do?
Comments (5)I just spent 2 years getting rid of all the rock mulch and landscape fabric that was in here when I bought the house. Rock mulch is NASTY stuff to work with when trying to do the perpetual planting and moving that most of us with perennial gardens do. If someone is just putting in larger bushes and trees, I guess it's possible that rock mulch over landscape fabric might work ok, but I don't plan to ever have either around here again! When I got rid of the rock and started pulling up the fabric, the soil underneath was completely compacted and nasty, and though water is supposed to easily penetrate the fabric, the moisture underneath it was extremely uneven and for the most part the soil was almost completely dry except for the places where I had cut holes in it to get my first plants in. Also, as you said, when it's covered with fabric, there's no way for organic matter to be worked into the soil--except in the very small area where you cut a hole to plant---and, as you said, you get weeds anyway! Maybe not as many as without the fabric, but you still get them. In my perennial areas the landscape fabric is now, finally, gone, and I really don't mind much at all sitting out in the yard when it cools in the evening and pulling the tiny little weeds out of an area--there just aren't that many. And now that the fabric is gone the bark mulch I have around all the perennials to conserve moisture and help keep the soil cool, will slowly decompose into the soil, gradually helping to improve it. To be truly effective in conserving moisture, you need a thick layer--2-4" is usually recommended---I need to add more yet, but this is an ongoing project! If price is a problem, as bpgreen says, you can often get free wood mulch from tree service companies--and, I understand, they will even deliver it free. I've never done it (I use bagged bark mulch), but there was a thread about it on (I think) the perennials forum last year. I bet you'll be pretty happy with your medium bark nuggets this year! With the veggies I use the grass clippings because it decomposes quickly so at the end of the season I turn the area over and by spring my soil is noticeably better than it was the previous year. It doesn't look that great though, so I use the bark with the flowers---and I wouldn't have enough grass clippings to use everywhere even if I wanted to. If you want grass to use in some areas, and live in or near an area where people still put their clippings out in trash bags, you can just drive around every now and then and pick some up. Or if you're friends with some neighbors, you could just ask if you can have their clippings when they cut the grass. You DO need to be careful that you don't get a lot of weed seeds with the clippings, but most lawns don't have too many weeds in them these days. In my experience, the seeds you get on ordinary blue grass don't germinate. I'm not sure why, but I suspect it's because we mow our lawns so often that they never have time to ripen. My lawn has been producing seeds like mad all summer, and I haven't had ANY problem with grass seedlings coming up in my garden. Happy gardening, Skybird...See Moredo radiant barriers work?
Comments (3)As David_Cary said, yes they work but to the extent is the question. It can't be answered generically, it depends on your attic, insulation, etc. I installed a radiant barrier in my home (hot, arid, central CA) laid horizontally to protect the attic insulation from radiant heat. It worked tremendously well, although as expected it did actually increase the temperature in the attic during summer. Increasing the temp in your attic is typically the opposite goal of what you're trying to achieve (lower attic temp = less heat transfer via the ceiling into conditioned living space). But the RB is what protected the insulation, which is what protected attic heat from entering the living space. You need to protect it everywhere though, against all your conditioned walls. Anyway, I don't know exactly how much it saved in $$ but I can tell you this: over the years, I did all kinds of things (in fact, everything on typical checklists) to help lower my summer utility bills and none of them had the effect the RB had. I was forced to keep the thermostat at 85 degrees to keep the summer bills somewhat affordable ($300/mo range). After RB, I have the temp at 77 and my bills are still about 15% lower than before. So just guessing here, it saved maybe 50% off my summer bills. This is because those last 10 degrees are difficult to achieve and maintain in 100+ heat and I live in an area with a tiered utility rate system. So my rates jump up more per kwH the more I use. It is above 30 cents kwH when you use 300% more than "baseline" usage. I'm able to stay just below that now, before -- definitely not. For me, it's a lot more than a few bucks per month I'm saving. I spent about $1000 on materials and did the installation myself. This included wrapping the ducting that was in the attic, which helped a lot also and was really required to prevent the added attic heat from penetrating into the system. I also spent $300 to add more dormer vents to help offset the increased temps in the attic. Summers are cooler and winters are warmer now. There is another downside though, it will keep heat "in" during summer, too. That is, heat generated from within your house (electronics, your own body heat) stays inside more. I've noticed this at night when the a/c was typically not on. During summer with cooler evenings you need to open some windows to expel the heat before going to bed. Otherwise it is possible your indoor temp will be higher than outside ambient temps, which was unusual before RB. Never expected that....See MoreDifferences Between Oxygen Barrier And Non-Barrier PEX Tubing
Comments (13)Bad analogy, but think of a sponge. When you look at a sponge, you can't see through it. To a certain extent it looks solid. But you know that the sponge is porous, that things can pass through it. Some things are too large to pass through the porous structure of the sponge. Some things are small enough to pass through the sponge. Same with PEX. PEX looks solid. For all intents and purposes, it IS a solid. It holds liquid water. But things can still pass through it. Oxygen is one of those things. Water has dissolved gases in it, oxygen being one of them. In something like a closed heating system with a cast iron boiler, oxygen can be a bad thing. Oxygen plus cast iron? Not a good combination. Iron plus oxygen? Rust. You don't want to rust out your cast iron boiler. In new installation, dissolved gasses in the system will eventually work their way out of solution and be purged from the system, especially if the water is heated. If you have PEX in this system, say with radiant floor heat? If your PEX does not have the O2 barrier, then atmospheric oxygen can pass through the wall of the PEX and enter your closed water system. The circulating water will then carry the oxygen to your cast iron boiler, potentially causing damage to your cast iron boiler. The oxygen barrier in the PEX prevents additional oxygen from getting into your closed system, so once the initial dissolved gasses in the water come out of solution and are purged after system start-up, you have "dead water" in your heating system. "Dead water" will not rust your cast iron boiler as there is no free oxygen in the water to react with the iron in the boiler. Hope that makes sense....See Moregardener1
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