You'll need to turn it back to fertilize your plants. I have it surrounding several vegetable patches but I left enough room for fertilizer in the middle strip where the plants are. I don't have it around my tomatoes, though. They're mulched with about five inches of leaf-mulch, which I do have to pull back to add fertilizer.

Next time, you might consider using a time-release fertilizer if you don't want to add fertilizer during the season. And maybe I'll take my own advice and do the same thing!

Damn, I don't think I can pull it back because the plans are close to the corners and edges. I did add some time released stuff before planting but i feel the soil was so poor that it probably only brought it to regular standards.

I should also note I am not using plastic but a organic 100% biodegradable sheet that acts the same as the plastic but breaks down within 2 months. Long enough to keep the weeds out till there is adequate shade to naturally keep the weeds out. So I should be able to fertilize later before harvesting.

Use one of the many liquid ferts as it will go through most of the plastic mulches - the perforated ones that allow in water and air. Or is this some sort of solid, non-perforated plastic?

Did you install soaker hose or drip irrigation for them? If so you can feed through your water system. Did you leave an opening around the base of the plant?

Otherwise you are going to have to pull back the mulch to get access to the soil as anney said.

Dave

I did not install drip hoses, I have large enough openings at the base of each plant to water with the hose. Can i use liquid fert in these holes? if so what would be the best way to go about that?

I use the black plastic mulch for my tomatos too. What I do is take a hand rake and loosen the dirt in the 1.5' hole in the plastic. I take a small handful of fert. and stick my hand UNDER the plastic and rake under and around the plant again, keeping about 4' from the stem of the plant. Water immediately. I have been doing this 4 times a growing season for years and never had burn.

I think the secret is to have a big enough hole in the plastic to do this.

Andrea

I have black plastic too and I also stick my hand in and put my manure or whatever I need in that way.. I also have found a liquid fertilizer Fish Emolsion.. sp? It is easy to use . just dilute 1 tbsp to 1 gallon of water.. You can also put it in a spray bottle and spray the leaves..

Take some 2-liter plastic pop bottles, fill them with a Miracle-Gro solution like say 1/2 tablespoon MG crystals and 2 liters of water. Cut a hole about the diameter of a quarter dollar in the plastic out about a foot from the base of each plant. Take a 3/4 inch diameter pipe and poke a hole in the dirt about two inches deep in each hole in the plastic sheet. Invert the 2-liter bottles full of MG solution into each hole and prop them up so they'll drip out the fertilizer solution ... but tamp some soil back in around the buried bottle neck so the fertilizer will drip out slowly over a period of a day or so. Poke a nail hole in the bottom of each inverted bottle to vent the bottle and facilitate evacuation.

Thanks Andrea, I am going to give that a whirl.

I use large sheets of black plastic vapor barrier from the home store for my mulch. I make sure there is plenty of organic matter in the soil first (fall leaves), and I perforate the black plastic so water can get in all over in addition to the holes for the plants. Just before putting down the mulch, I scatter slow release fertilizer and rake it into the top inch of soil.

I use quarter strength liquid fertilizer once when I transplant the seedlings into the garden, From then on I just scatter granular fertilizer over the black plastic as if I were fertilizing soil and let the rain or sprinkler water bring it through the holes in the black plastic. No problems, and I have been doing this for years.

By the way, in that first scratch-in fertilization, I also scatter a teaspoohnful of Epsom salts (a magnesium source)and a handful of some bone meal or other calcium source such as ground limestone per plant, and I have not had any blossom end rot.

This is the commercial version of what Hoosier is talking about. On this particular type you can adjust the drip rate. Fill your plastic soda bottle up with your ferts, attach spike and stick it in the ground. Don't get any easier. Ami

Here is a link that might be useful: Watering Spike

Okay, the question in the original post was asked back in June 2008. That growing season is kaput ... over.

Now that we should know whether or not we plan to use black plastic sheet mulch on our tomato rows in 2009, why not plan ahead as to how we will apply midseason fertilizer applications?

What commercial grower friends of mine do is chisel a shallow trench about 18 - 24 inches out from the base of the plant and fill the trench with granular fertilizer ... slow release or otherwise. The trench is then covered by the black plastic sheet which is trenched into the ground out at its edges.

As pointed out above above, another way to apply midseason fertilizer is via fertigation ... thru the watering system laid under the plastic sheet. I've seen this done in the British West Indies where they use white plastic instead of black plastic due to the heat and intensity of sunlight. In fact, on one particular island where the soil is nothing but gravely weathered coral, the fertigation schedule is so nearly constant that basically they're growing hydroponically on raised gravel beds.

If you're gonna use plastic mulch this year, plan ahead.