Making nice round holes in black polythene

This year I renewed the three-year-old black polythene I use to keep the weeds down in parts of the veg plot. Cutting holes with a craft knife and scissors takes ages (slash-slash, snip, snip, snip, snip, for each hole) and can leave corners and nicks that weaken the sheet and reduce it�s useable life.
This year I decided to make nice perfectly round holes in my nice new black mulch. I did it by taking a 2 inch diameter piece of thin alloy tube and heating it with a gas blow lamp. Dab, dab,dab with the hot tube. It took about 20 minutes to make 100 holes for my leeks. If you don�t have a suitable bit of tube, a small tin can nailed to a bit of wood would do the trick.

 

Dave
That sounds such a good idea.

Now where's that baked beans tin.............. :D

 

I made a little gadget for making holes in the bottom of plastic containers along the same lines, bit of copper tube with wooden handle stuck in. I think my drill was broken at the tIme! You seem to have gadgets for everything, Dave!

 

Would you recommend to use plastic sheet when I plant my asparagras plants the bed I am using has some grownd elder not far away. Would it be of any benefit?

 

:rolleyes: You men and your gadgets!!!!!!! (but is a good idea, though!!)

 

I know it's difficult to get rid of ground elder, but I would try to stop it getting into the asparagus rather than trying to starve it out once it's there. Asparagus roots like to spread and I think it would be better to put a vertical barrier between asparagus and ground elder, ie put some polythene or whatever to a depth of 2' or whatever you can manage.
I find that new aspagus shoots appear randomly in an established bed and they wouldn't be able to get through plastic sheeting.