One word – Occultation.

The word occultation actually comes from the verb “occult”—to cut off from view. When you employ occultation in your garden, you reduce the amount of sunlight hitting the soil.

When our weed control tarp is laid against the soil, warmth and moisture are trapped underneath. As the soil warms, more weed seeds come out of their dormancy. When they germinate, they sprout into what is a  fairly suffocating environment, void of air movement. Ultimately, the weeds die under the tarp and are consumed by worms and other organisms who enjoy the darkness. Left on for three or four weeks (at least six in the winter), and the occultation should take care of many or most of the weed seeds within the top inch or so of soil, leaving you with an almost completely composted and beautiful stale seedbed!

Occultation cannot always kill perennial weeds, but it will generally weaken them, making removal with a shovel easier. Also consider that even though occultation will encourage earthworms and other organisms to consume plant matter, it will not rapidly break down large plant residue.

• Remove as much crop residue, such as large roots and stems, as possible before applying the tarps.
• In the heat of the summer, some take to flipping the tarps to their silver coloured side in hotter months so as not to harm the soil microbial life with excess heat.
• Anytime you are not using an area of your farm or garden and leaving it exposed, i.e. not covered by a tarp, you are essentially leaving it susceptible to the elements. So, the winter rain will come in and wash away the top soil and erode the soil and its nutritious values. Hence it is important to keep any unused/uncropped area to be covered by a waterproof tarp in order to maintain its soil structure.
• We don’t recommend using pegs to peg the tarp down or using staples of any sort because it doesn’t help in preserving the tarp and we would like our tarps to last you for multiple seasons.