This is an old question. However, I want to clarify a bit for folks who are new to growing with plastic mulch in large sheets. Dennis explianed it well. I'lI just add my four cents. Which is way too much. So here's the short version 1- Dennis is right and use big sheets 2- make round holes, they tear less. 3- pick up and store plastic away from winter UV 4- don't worry about the weeds and grass. do not till, add compost only at the holes, before putting down the plastic. Water only until the plants are established. A week or 2. No irrigation needed. Ever. Well, maybe in the SW. 5- soil is 5° cooler under black plastic in the summer (Rodale c.1985). 6- Relax, until Mid August then protect from fifty-five° I'm not kidding! The long version. I have been raising melons, tomatoes, eggplant, peppers and more, using six mil or thicker black plastic since the nineteen seventies. My parents started with ten mil (I think), which I inherited and it lasted eight years of leaving it out year round. The winter UV finally killed iit. My first suggestion is that you roll it up and store it in a dark place. I get six years or more out of six mil black. Pre-drilling with inch holes is a great idea and I'll try it at about one foot intervals. I just poke holes in puddles when they appear. His nail on a broomstick in a better idea than my method of using whatever is at hand. Why? Because plastic tears in a line. If you make a longitudinal cut, instead of a round hole or puncture, in later years it will tear more easily. So, do not make your planting holes with an "x". Make them round with scissors, or as I do. I cut both ends of a can, around four to five in diam, hold it with vise grips and heat the other end with a propane torch. Take a deep breath and psst, cut a nice round, sealed hole and put the circle in a trash bsg . For melons I use six foot diagonal spacing. Less for tomatoes, even less for peppers, eggplant, basil, etc. Plan well, because that's the configuration for years to come. I often use twenty by twenty sheets so I could just turn it each year for crop rotation. You might just slide it down the length of the garden, if north south orientation augers against turning the layout Now, its about time to plant. Clear plastic will heat up your ground before you plant. Black plastic will not. Clear plastic solarization is thought by some to disturb/ destroy the beneficial biota of you topsoil. So heat with caution and read more to find your way. That aside: in spite of the wind, lay the black plastic on the ground...no need to weed or cultivate. Drive a short stake into the center of each hole. Pick up the plastic and prepare the area at each stake as you wish. I try to remove a half bushel or more of soil to my compost and fill each hole with a compost soil mix. Replace the plastic. Batten down the edges with soil, stones boards, etc. Plant and water individually, as needed for a week or two. Then forget about it. You may need to weed three inches on all sides of each plant. You will not need irrigation. You have stopped evaporation. The ground in most regions is wet when you plant. It will stay perfectly moist all summer. I have had a few six week periods of eighty to a hundred degrees and no rain w/o water stress. Rodale tested mulches sometime in the eighties and determined that six mil black plastic kept the soil five degrees cooler than bare soil. For me the major problem with melon production is that i crowd them. So stepping on the vines as I pick and some mildew. I do not lift the melons off the plastic, but puncture a puddle occupied by a melon. Bigger still is that after over thirty years, I cannot tell if a watermelon is ripe. Beware the heartbreak of late collapse in canteloupes! Fifty-five degrees will make you cry in the August dawn. Get some cover material and get out there on that cool evening, when the clouds go away. A few nights later,you can relax until fall. That's for Western Oregon, Wash, Penna, and the garden state. In NH prepare to keep the patch above fifty- five. Sorry about the length... I just love eating melons!

To David 28. Sorry, sodium hydroxide is a lubricant and does lubricate seals and bearing in a top load washer. It is water soluable. I also read in a student textbook concerning Diesel engine oil, that sodium is or was used as an additional lubricant. Just previously they used carbon in motor oil to reduce friction. It was discontinued decades ago. Why I do not know, I am not in the oil business. Doing laundry is personal and I report what I see and did. Sodium hydroxide is excellent for laundry. No detergent is required and no bleach. I use 5 Gram sodium hydroxide dissolved in cold water before adding to hot water in the washer, before adding clothes. It removes most if not all body oil enbedded in clothes and makes soap. Bleach is not required as the pH of sodium hydroxide at the start with fresh sodium, 14.0 pH and is far above bleach. If one is nervous with this chemical, one can use sodium carbonate that requires 15 gram/laundry load and no detergent or bleach and does almost as well as sodium hdroxide. There is no smell to the laundry after washing with these chemicals, laundry smells like brand new out of your favorite clothing store. What makers of these chemicals FAIL to mention concerning these two chemicals, is storage must be in air right containers or else oxygen in the air will render sodium useless. This also includes HTH powdered bleach, calcium hypochlorate as used in swimming pools. Store in air tight containers! Use about 50 grams of powdered bleach per 4 liter water to make a gallon of bleach. I have done this for years and never had a problem except I failed to store it properly and it did a lot of damage to metal. Keep it stored in air tight containers! The original OEM containers are useless except for shipping. I do not buy bleach any longer. If I do need bleach I use sodium carbonate! Cheaper and excellent! Almost any chemical above a pH of 7.0 can be used in laundry. The current price of detergent makes me shiverrrrr.

I use a small one for coupons, too. I also use the larger "zip" ones to sort hardware-type things: In one bag are picture-hanging nails/clips/3M Command hooks. In another are spare drapery holder thingies -- brackets, old finials, etc. A couple others hold other things. I got tired of digging through a large plastic toolbox and a large Rubbermaid-type bin for things. This way, I can spot what I need before I even have to open the bags. Also, I use the smaller zip bags to divvy up my dog's kibble servings when she's going to the dogsitter's home for a few nights when I have to be away.

Did you notice that it has changed? I was really happy with this back last year when it was in a clear container with the liquid being kind of a milky white color. Back it up a bit for me to say that I am EXTREMELY sensitive to laundry detergents these days and I found this to be the only thing I had found that I could use without any issue. So then it became hard to find and when it came back, it was packaged in a white jug with a clear liquid inside. I thought "OH NO!" but I went ahead and bought it. It seemed OK but then after using it for a couple of weeks, I began to itch again. I cannot find anything on line that says it changed but obviously it did because it was milky in color before but now it is clear. So just that said it's not the exact same thing. I am so frustrated with not being able to find a detergent I can use and when I do find something, it will change unexpectedly. UGH! Have any of you tried that ECOS sensitive? I'm thinking of trying that one. What do you all use that are very sensitive?