Use White Plastic Sheets to cover the soil beds, not black plastic sheets

Have you ever paid attention to the farmers and laborers at work, it's really just a great deal of hard work.

When I look at the farmers in Ghana and how they grow food, my respect for them keeps going up.

But there's a problem. The crops they grow is constantly being threatened by extreme heat brought on by our weather. Because of the current season, most of the newbie farmers will not see it but during the dry, hot season it's a serious headache.

The dry hot weather kills crops quickly and for pepper crops which need water consistently to produce fruit of good quality, the use of white plastic on the soil beds is a great way to combat the problem and protect the crops by keeping the soil cool.

Most of the farmers, especially the old traditional ones, often use the black plastic sheets to cover their soil beds.

I want to tell you a secret about the two colours and what you're really getting if you choose them.

The black type of plastic sheeting, absorbs a lot of heat from the sun because it's black and that's exactly what that colour does, absorbs sunlight heat.

So what that means is that in very hot climates this can have disastrous results, the soil is literally cooked by the heat and guess what's in that soil, the roots of the pepper plants.

The white plastic sheeting though, because it's white, would reflect the sun rays and so it keeps the soil cool. Sandy soil and the safe root zone of the pepper plants are kept cool by the white plastic cover.

On top of that, water is supplied to the plants by using small pipes running underneath the white sheet in a drip irrigation system. The pepper plants are supplied with the right amount of water and the plastic sheet saves water and lowers the farmers’ working hours.

If I'm to build one, I'll go for white instead of the black sheets.