“Sam, Flora-Flow really lasts! You may not want to hear it, but I have a mat that I put in in the fall of 2016 and I plan on leaving it until this Fall.”
Silver mulch combats aphids, potato beatles and others that hide beneath the leaf canopy to avoid predators and evade desiccating sunlight. That may or may not be exactly what you need. But it does more too...
Compared to planting in bare ground or landscape fabrics plastic mulch in the form of our All-in-One Mats does much more:
Benefits:
1. Plastic Mulch: | 2. All-in-One Mats: | 3. Silver Mulch: |
|
|
|
After reading several papers on silver mulch it is very clear that it does a good job of:
A paper on growing bell peppers in Maine summarizes results of growing in black, silver, and black with white film-covered pathways in one or two rows per bed on three farms like this:
The tables show that more reflected light via either silver mulch or the black with white-interrow pathways produce more early sellable peppers, thus the more reflective the planting the higher the yield. [As an aside, you can also read from the tables that closer/denser plantings produce small, but more plentiful fruits]. The cull table shows that insect damage and disease is less with the more reflective solutions. The paper notes that there is three times the light in a field with black + white-interrow mulch. That is great news--the more light, the higher the yield and the lower the bug and disease damage to peppers.
On the other hand, the cull table also reveals that the more reflective solutions produce more light-related problems: sunscald, and blossom end rot. Clearly too much light can be its own problem and this fact may be more significant in other crops.
Here is another set of data from India concerning season extension and flowering. [The paper looks at many different aspects of chilli growth in the listed varieties of plastic mulch with a bare-earth control plot.].
This study shows a shocking 31 day season extension in silver-mulched vs bare ground pepper production.
(from Table 6, Effect of various mulches on days to first and last picking on chilli) |
|||
Treatment |
Days to 1st picking |
Days to last picking |
Picking Days |
Black Mulch |
66 |
150 |
84 |
Silver/Black Mulch |
66 |
161 |
95 (MAX) |
Rice Straw |
67 |
143 |
76 |
Control (bare ground) |
71 |
135 |
64 (MIN) |
With respect to flowering, again the silver mulch rocks--six days earlier for flower production of possible interest to flower growers thinking of using flora-flow silver!
(from Table 5, Effect of various mulches on days to first and 50% flowering on chilli) |
||
Treatment |
Days to 1st flowering |
Days to 50% flowering |
Black Mulch |
49 |
68 |
Silver/Black Mulch |
46 |
71 |
Rice Straw |
49 |
74 |
Control (bare ground) |
50 |
74 |
This article in the New York Times(AP, 7/6/99): Silver Mulch Linked to More Robust Plants discusses more results of interest.
My recent brief blog post also talks about other studies that show the benefits of silver mulch.
]]>
Silver mulch is fun, like many shiny thing, and absolutely amazing in the field. --on a plot without mulch 70% of plants were infected with whitefly, while on the silver mulch plot only 1%. The farmer in the test reported "50% to 60% larger leaves" due to the healthier plants...a Penn State Extension test yielded 20% more peppers than black mulch.
]]>''Silver mulch increases light to the plant canopy,... That basically translates into more photosynthesis and increased growth of the plant.''--NY Times.
It reports benefits to a number of crops for example consider these striking figures for pumpkins--on a plot without mulch 70% of plants were infected with whitefly, while on the silver mulch plot only 1%. The farmer in the test reported "50% to 60% larger leaves" due to the healthier plants.
In a UMASS Extension service article, the silver mulch benefit is noted especially in aphid control. The paper cites a Penn State Extension test that yielded 20% more peppers than black mulch.
"...at Penn State, bell peppers grown on silver mulch yielded an average of 20% more fruit than peppers grown on black plastic."--UMASS Extension Service
We are excited to offer for the first time this year dual line silver mulch that looks like this:
What is that black stripe about? The black provide a heating area to counteract the cooling of the silver coating.
Let us know if you would rather have it in a single line version too. For more info on our silver mulch, visit this page now!
]]>Happy 2018! The growing season is about to start for many of you and we hope Flora-Flow will be part of your plans. We write with news about novelty in our product offerings, manufacturing technology and marketing focus this year.
New stuff:
Tomato Hornworm
We have added metalized All-in-One Mats (aka silver) with dual drip lines to our catalog. We are using silver mulch with a black central stripe. The black stripe warms the soil, while the silver reflects light to the bottom of leaves to deter insects.
Also, we will list Agribon row cover material shortly in 83" widths. This is the perfect row cover to prevent bug infestations and provide a degree of frost protection. We will have 50' and 100' foot lengths.
We now have punched plastic white on one side and black on the other. These mats give you the choice of white or black side up and the ability to use your own drip system. Actually, we offered these last season, without much fanfare. These mats are punched with our standard 6" spacing and can be used with your existing drip system, or, soaker hoses.
Did you ever have a mat without a full set of holes? We hope not, but it did happen. This year, we have added a sensor to our production line that will alert us when our faithful hole punch fails. The problem we have had to overcome is that the plastic is folded soon after it is punched, so it is difficult to see when/where unpunched film is made. Our new sensor should let us know in a timely manner so there are not skips of more than 10-20 feet in the event a punch jams, or a die comes loose.
Did you ever have a mat with kinked drip tape? Again, we hope not. And, if you ever do please let us know and we can send tape couplers that will let you replace a kink with some new drip tape... In any event, we expect this quality issue to be reduced this year. As our tension control system is improved, the drip tape and the film should be matched in tension.
We will have a new photo/review gallery in the next few days so that users (you?) can post pictures of your garden and help others see how Flora-flow helps in the garden. We will send out email invitations to our customers in the next several days asking for submissions. If you submit a photo and/or review you will get a coupon code for 15% off our kits and mats..
In the realm of new year resolutions, we do hope to work on the website in the next few weeks so that ordering and planning your garden are made easier!
Well, we are excited that we picked some new standard box sizes that should save on shipping costs. Our cases of 200-foot mats will now cost several dollars less to ship since there will less wasted space in the boxes. And, no one even asked us why we were shipping air!
We do want to wish you a happy 2018 in your garden and on your farm. Thank you for your support last year. And, please let us know if we can help in any way in the coming months before you plant.
Yours,
Sam Finney
Flora-Flow LLC
All-in-One mats do a great job blocking weeds and saving water. For me, they pay for themselves the first time I don’t have to weed, but for the sake of the environment the payback is murky. Is the time savings worth the environmental cost? Is the plastic worth the expense? I am often asked about using the mats for more than one season. I want to share our observations about what we see in the field, provide some suggestions for reuse, and talk a little about the pros and cons of using plastic in the garden. I will cover the environmental arguments in another newsletter/post.
In any scenario whether you reuse your film for two years, or don’t, you can of course reuse the fittings and tubing that you have on hand.
Our test installations have lasted multiple seasons. In one instance the soil was prepared, and the plastic was placed in fall with holes left in place such that the covered bed would be ready for early spring planting. In another instance planting occurred in the fall and growth continued into the next season. The field is in full sun in a windy location. The plastic may have been protected by snow for part of the season. In our installations, we did not remove and reinstall the plastic, and we installed the mulch by burying the edges with soil. The mats left in place performed well despite extended exposure to sunlight.
Other customers have taken pains to take up and reuse their mats after the first growing season. This makes lots of sense--the mats are not exposed unnecessarily to sunlight or insect and pest damage, and the garden beds are left exposed for treatments in the spring such as tilling, or adding nutrients. Despite the increase handling required by the removal and replacement efforts, these installations also have performed well in the second season.
Obviously, if you can use your mat for two years your cost is lower by about ½.
And, ½ the plastic means ½ the plastic waste and ½ the environmental impact. If you are leaving our plastic in place over winter you also get ½ the effort for installation since you have a single installation rather than two.
In using the plastic for two years you do lose a few advantages in use flexibility and increased likelihood of damage. You will be required to use the same planting holes or leave them exposed to the elements which will increase your weeding efforts in the future--or perhaps covering the holes with other opaque materials (humm-I wonder if black polypropylene packing tape would do this job?) . The plastic will become more brittle as sun exposure increases and may become more difficult to remove in the second season if you have buried the edges into the soil. This is because the plastic will pull apart when you tug on it to remove it. Finally, you may find that pests have invaded your drip tubing during the winter and need to be dealt with before your drip lines run well again.
If you plan on using your All-in-One Mats for a second year and don’t mind working around the reduced functionality of the opened plant holes, here are some suggestions.
A customer offered this tip to easily lift spent plastic mulch secured by edge burial. Slit the mulch down the middle, and pull each half toward the side of the bed. This causes the buried edge to spill its soil and come free. It works much better than trying to pull the mulch along the length of the bed due to the spilling action.
The best way, in my opinion, to begin anything is to dive in and begin. Ignore convention, ignore experts, get dirty, and make mistakes. In the realm of beginning a vegetable garden, here, at least, is one way to do it. I discovered it when a good friend asked me the easiest way to get started planting. I replied as an expert...and was kindly ignored.
]]>The best way, in my opinion, to begin anything is to dive in and begin. Ignore convention, ignore experts, get dirty, and make mistakes. In the realm of beginning a vegetable garden, here, at least, is one way to do it. I discovered it when a good friend asked me the easiest way to get started planting. I replied as an expert...and was kindly ignored.
He made it really simple--I don’t know what he had planned for the morning, but I called, and he said I should stop in. We had coffee and discussed the notion of selling Flora-Flow to novice gardeners, overwhelmed in a springtime garden center, surrounded by lots of products, seeds, seedlings and grouchy plant people. Not easy. The answer in his mind was via video.
He suggested a film to demonstrate the ease of growing with plastic mulch and drip irrigation and with Flora-Flow gear specifically. He offered his lawn, his video camera, and a trip to the hardware to fetch a few things: plants, a bulb planter and...that’s it. I supplied one black 8 foot Flora-Flow mat, a mechanical hose timer, and a box of landscape staples. James’s good hypothesis was that to get people into the garden requires simplicity, ease, and near certain success, plus some easily digestible video knowledge. Want that? To make the video, over the next two hours, we purchased plants: tomatoes, peppers, lettuce, swiss chard, beets and kale and planted them directly into his recently mowed lawn through a Flora-Flow mat. The process is quick, was easy for James, and really easy for me behind the video camera.
Conventional best wisdom might have said planting into the lawn was not the smartest thing to do. We all know gardens have lovely fluffy soil with smiling earthworms and rich earthy aromas--not dense grasses with spreading roots. We all know that garden centers are stacked high with compost, topsoil, fertilizer, peat moss, sand and more and that our green thumb friends all have fancy compost bins along with a spiffy garden gate-- so how can we have a garden without some of that “best” stuff? Easy. Good is good enough, and the chances are very good that if you have grass growing there you can also have vegetables (especially in year one).
In any event, here is the recipe for the good-enough garden, and I submit that for a beginning gardener you really should shoot for good-enough, rather than “best.” For most of us, the “best” garden is actually over-productive and in many senses wasteful--too many tomatoes, too many zucchini, and not enough balance. Now, if you want, remove your sod, double dig your soil to loosen and aerate it -- while adding plenty of compost, lime and eggshells at the bottom of every tomato hole. But, truthfully, in year one, it isn’t really necessary. And, even some experts will tell you that “no-till” is better than crazy intensive bed prep.
The Flora-Flow Lawn-to-Lettuce Easy Beginning Vegetable GardenYour garden will grow. It will grow well. My friend James reported phenomenal growth over the summer and his only complaint was that he didn’t like to have to eat so many greens. He did like the simple start, and lack of weeding maintenance. He did view the use of a garden timer as almost essential--since it turns watering into a set-and-forget task, rather than a two-trip every other day task.
Starting a new garden in an area that grows grass works because the soil is in fine condition to grow things--it is balanced (with respect to pH) and fertile (its already growing grass after all). The plastic mat/mulch will kill most of the grass by robbing it of sunlight. The built-in drip irrigation will supply water evenly and slowly (really slowly, in fact) so your plants have the moisture to thrive on.
In actuality, the physical planting into grass is harder than planting into a traditionally prepared garden soil because the grass is matted and the soil is relatively compact, but it is MUCH easier than going whole hog on your garden and digging the whole thing instead of 20-40 tiny holes. And, your soil will loosen over the growing season because it stays evenly moist, and the dense grass roots will compost in the warm moist environment making the growth of your vegetables outstanding.
This year, join the "cult of the imperfect.". Next year, you can move up a step by improving your soil a bit, and deciding what else you want to grow. You likely will need to do augment your soil, as your crop from this year will have removed much of the fertility from your former grass patch.
"If you never miss a plane, you're spending too much time at the airport."
Beginning a vegetable garden is not difficult. But starting off too big is a common occurrence. I’d rather miss a plane than waste too much time in the airport, and I’d rather grow a simple successful, low maintenance vegetable garden than one that proves too difficult to manage. Flora-Flow, plastic mulch and drip irrigation in combination, is a winning system for novice and professional growers alike.
]]>This week we address plant spacing in the garden, and provide you a moment to examine your self. Whether you are a slave to instructions on seed packages and other fixed traditions, or try a new seed spacing in crooked rows with each poke in the ground this topic is good to focus on when you plant. And, thankfully, it provides an opportunity to examine your gardening life.
]]>This week we address plant spacing in the garden, and provide you a moment to examine your self. Whether you are a slave to instructions on seed packages and other fixed traditions, or try a new seed spacing in crooked rows with each poke in the ground this topic is good to focus on when you plant. And, thankfully, it provides an opportunity to examine your gardening life.
Plant spacing is not set in stone--there is no one way to grow your crop and the wise gardener exploits plant spacing to make their lives better. Plant spacing affects:
You can adjust your plant spacings to take advantage of space, equipment, soil fertility, budget, etc.
Garden seed packages typically specify a recommended plant spacing and row spacing. What do they mean? Its anyone's guess what your seed package's plant spacing recommendation is telling you. Is this how I get the most production (tomatoes per plant, or tomatoes per square foot, for example), or is this how I get the most tomatoes per hour in the garden? Or, where my mind often goes is--is this the most profligate use of seed the company could think of? (I think in this depressingly suspicious way even though most seed packages contain more than I need for my home garden and family of 5).
Self Assessment
Since plant spacing are not cast in stone, feel free to decide--use the seed package recommendation as a starting point, not an end point in your planting. Here are some scenarios and solutions others have come up with.
High Density?
What do you want from your garden? The author Mel Bartholomew wanted a high density garden and wrote his popular book "Square Foot Gardening." His theory is to grow as much in as little space as possible. His spacing method is "as close as possible." And, his basic advice is to read the "plant spacing" recommendation on a seed package, and ignore the row spacing info, and finally to plant in squares rather than rows. A lettuce with a 6" plant spacing is planted 4 units to a square foot, or 6 inches apart in every direction. In the "Square Foot" method, you increase demands on your soil, increase demands on hand weeding and eliminate the use of weeding tools. That may be good--as you need less of almost everything, but you do need more preparation and planning to make the system pay off.
High Efficiency?
Lets say you want maximum efficiency, rather than maximum density. Here is what Elliot Coleman, the master organic gardener does with some of his crops. He makes multi-plant blocks each containing 5 seeds. He exploits this method for these crops:
He assumes 4 seeds will germinate. He then plants the multi-plant blocks on a 12" spacing rather than planting the 5 seeds at a rate of 5 per 12 inches of row. The result is a clump of plants that have the same ratio of soil/plant but ¼ the amount of work weeding around the plants. ¼ the effort planting in the field, etc.
Fewest Seeds? Fewest Empty Spaces?
Lets say you wanted to stretch your seeds as far as you possibly could. Because not every seed will germinate, you are often instructed to plant many seeds and then told to thin them to a proper plant spacing. You waste seed in the hopes of getting a good spacing. In the fewest seed scenario you would plant your seeds at the desired plant spacing and live with the gaps that would occur. The result is fewer seeds consumed, but more wasted space that needs to be kept weed free, etc. In the fewest empty spaces scenario you would plant some multiple of seeds in each ideal plant location to insure that each location had at least one successful germination.
Best use of the tools you have?
Now, lets think like someone who just bought a fancy tool for cultivating the soil with great ease. This tool can eliminate weeds in 12 inch wide swaths. This person would very likely want to plant everything with at least a 12 inch row spacing in between plants because that space would be easy to keep free of weeds. The technique might waste space, but it would save time.
Overall, the point is that within a wide range you can play with seed spacing to suit your needs. Multi-plant blocks, and high density plantings make tons of sense for home gardener and small scale farmers alike.
Direct Seeding vs. Transplanting
Transplants offer these advantages over direct seeded plants:
In addition to the dimensions of plant spacing described above, you should also consider the costs and benefits of direct seeding and transplants. All things considered, most gardeners would like to see neat, tidy rows or squares of healthy plants growing. Growing from seed usually means more work and less order in your garden as you need to deal with the uncertainty of plant germination and the increase weed pressures faced by extremely young plants (that may sprout at about the same rate as every-present weed seeds in the soil). Units to be transplanted can be sown at 1 seed per unit so they never need thinning--and the units that do not germinate are simply discarded. Transplants can be started earlier (or purchased) in shelter and place in the garden or field after small weeds are eliminated. Developed transplants have significant competitive advantages over weeds that are starting from seed.
Note: many seedlings for sale have never been thinned! Thinning is a time consuming operation for nurseries and home gardeners alike but it is good to be make sure the units you are planting all have the same number of plants. Because the nursery need to be sure that every 6-pack has six plants, they need to overseed the pack has at least one plant in every cell. As we discussed, they need to plant more than one seed in each cell to achieve this. At home, you want to make a conscious decision about planting one or two plants per cell, since your cells will grow differently with different numbers of plants within them...
All-in-One Mats, Plant spacing and transplanting
Most Flora-Flow mats include 2 inch diameter tear-out planting holes at 6" spacings. If you tear out every hole, you get a hole every 6 inches, and by alternating the holes you tear out you can get plant spacing of 12, 18, 24 inches and so forth. While this is a limitation, you will find that you fit any plant into the system--you just need to alter the plant spacing from what is indicated on the package in a reasonable fashion. If you want a recommendation about a particular plant--vegetable, flower, berry, etc--please let us know. We are happy to help.
Transplants are especially useful in the Flora-flow system because the developed plants often shield sunlight within the plant hole opening and eliminate any secondary need to weed around the transplanted unit. Direct seeding is easily accomplished but will likely require both thinning and hand weeding while your seeds get established.
In any event, we believe Flora-Flow mats are an excellent choice for home gardens and small farms because they save you time and resources and and let you work less and produce more.
All-in-One Mats without perforations
We do have a limited number of lower cost mats without perforations. These mats do require you to tear or cut your own holes, but are just great for crops that do not have a high planting density--especially things like melons, squash, pumpkin, and tomatoes.
]]>Happy 2015 Growers and Gardeners:
We have spent the last three months reinventing Flora-Flow, the company--not the product. The reinvention has involved moving our production facility from Guatemala to Trenton New Jersey and are now located in the amazing Home Rubber Co, established 1882 (photo on right). This arrangement give us much more manufacturing flexibility including custom manufacturing if you want a special plastic (biodegradable, alternate colors, etc) or hole spacings, etc. Read on to learn about our new offerings and a season look ahead.
We are poised to release our new website as a work in progress and expect it to be live in the next few days--just a few more buttons to click. If you have comments please share them! We hope it is better looking, more responsive and provides more information to gardeners and growers looking for help with weeds, watering and growing.
We have begun manufacture of double-line All-in-One Mats that have two drip lines spaced evenly on the mat. This should help with moisture distribution in porous soils or in growing the the very edge or a wide bed. The mats will not be listed immediately on website--if you are interested in double line Mats please contact us for pricing (info@flora-flow.com, or sam@flora-flow.com). We will list them as soon as we have the necessary photography and other support info. We also are working on designing a suitable connector kit. Since these dual line mats require twice as much water, our current connector kits are useful only for the smallest installations due to low flow restrictions.
As we mentioned, our new facility means we have new flexibility. We will be offering white/black plastic versions of our mats this season. Again, they are not on the website but you can contact us for more info (info@flora-flow.com, or sam@flora-flow.com).
It may be poor form to admit a need, but hey we put all our good form into the product. We need photos that explain our product to new users, and potential users. Any photos you have of your garden or field would be of great use to us. Especially useful are before and after photos. Any photo we use will earn credit or a payment from us. To the left is one we like that we received from a user...
We want to finish with the simple message to get in touch. Happy, sad, confused, impressed--nothing gets better without communication. It sounds like blah blah blah, but we believe it.
We haven't included any offers in the first of the season newsletter, but rest assured they are coming as soon as we are done cooking them up. If you do order before receiving our early season offers and would like us to apply the after the fact--please let us know and we will do our best to apply them.
Again, Happy 2015.
Yours,
Sam Finney & the Flora-Flow team.