How Do You Solarize Garden Soil?
If you live in a warm climate and have problems with nematodes or soil-borne pathogens, solarizing your soil might just solve your problems. With this simple method, you use sheets of clear plastic, which you place on top of the area you want to help, and the sun does the rest. Solarization can help to control tomato wilt fungus–both the fusarium and verticillium wilt. As a natural control, solarization can save gardeners and farmers many dollars that they might have spent on herbicides, fungicides and other pest control products. It replaces methyl bromide in its effectiveness. It’s ideal for many different kinds of crops, because it can control the pests that affect fruits, vegetables, nursery and orchard crops. Areas that have high summer temperatures experience the best success with solarization: daytime highs of 85 degrees Fahrenheit are ideal. The only drawback of solarizing your soil is that you need to leave the area you treat fallow for about six weeks in midsummer. In June,