Turning the Page for Pollinators: Blogging for Pollinators

To begin, we gathered our tools: shovels, kneeling pads, gloves, sun protection!

We marked the perimeter of our space by trimming the grass low with an edger.

Then, we worked in shifts to excavate a V-shaped 'snake' of earth along both sides of our marked line. 

You can see the dig lines on either side of our perimeter. Spade-style shovels made for efficient, precise lines. A rounded or scoop-type shovel may be less helpful for this straight-line work, but use what you have!

Next we busted out the kneeling pads (except for Richard here, who donned work pants with kneepads built in -- that's why they call them Master Gardeners, folks!) to get down to ground level and carefully tip the V-shaped snake of earth out of our fine trench. 

We tipped the earth *outside* the perimeter so that it will be in place for the tip back in, to anchor the edge of the plastic to come.

Here we are measuring the plastic and trimming to fit our space. We chose 4mm thickness plastic sheeting for durability.

We layered the overlapping sheets and drove earth staples (picture: a regular staple, but bigger, with long prongs) to join them together in a center seam.

We gently eased the perimeter earth back into the gap, with the plastic tucked in, to form the outer seal.

We saw instant results with condensation forming, confirming we had a tight seal all around.

Second verse same as the first! We marked, trenched, and fit plastic to our next site.

Teamwork makes the dream work: it was helpful to be able to rotate between digging, trenching, laying plastic, etc. Solarization is a simple concept but requires mindful work—don't forget to hydrate!

With our sites tucked in nicely, we'll leave the plastic in place until the late fall, allowing the grass to die off and the seed bed below the soil to be neutralized.