Planting Black Plastic

On Sunday, we received our strawberry plants. That means we have to get the ground ready to plant them. Yesterday, Momma, Annie, and I cut up a roll of black plastic into three long strips. We laid it out over the rows where the strawberries will go, and we secured the edges of the plastic by burying them in the dirt. This job took several hours, because the ground was not freshly tilled and soft. Remember all that rain we have gotten? It pounded our clay soil until it was rather hard. However, the first part is done. Now all we have to do is mark the plastic and cut holes in it, plant the strawberries, and then keep up with weeding and watering. This year we're prepared for frost. We have more black plastic to cover our rows when it freezes. Last year we omitted this important detail, and we lost our first crop of berries. Live and learn! We sure got dirty yesterday. I think you could have planted the berries straight onto my skirt. I also discovered that I seem to be a fire ant magnet. Momma and Annie walked, knelt, and crawled up and down those rows, but as soon as I came along I got into ants. Ouch!