Harness solar power in your garden this summer

If you are looking for a great DIY garden tip for getting rid of weeds, the hot sun could be just the ticket.

Jon Lamb, writing for The Advertiser, asserts that a gardening technique known as solarisation can be used to protect the plants you want in your garden - and kill off the ones you don't, like weeds.

This environmentally-friendly method works by concentrating the sun's rays with sheets of clear plastic, which can result in much higher temperatures at ground level.

If you can manage to seal in the edges of the plastic sheets over moist ground for a period of one month to six weeks, you will have a cheap, effective way of killing off weeds and eliminating soil-borne diseases.

The technique is particularly effective for gardeners who utilise raised beds for their vegetable patches, which can be a hotbed for soil diseases after a few years of use, Lamb notes.

He says that the plastic may need to be left in place for even longer periods of time outside of the warm summer months, or in cooler areas of the country.

DIY gardeners may also want to strategically plan shady areas in their garden to keep their plants sheltered from the powerful summer sun - this can easily be achieved by planting tall trees or by setting up shade structures such as sun sails.