Looks like i spoke out of turn, Carole. Everything i'm finding on solarizing mentions you must do it in the summer for maximum effectiveness. I did find 1 or 2 references to using black plastic in winter to start the process, then switching to the clear plastic and following through just like the normal sequence for solarizing. The black plastic helps to kill off the weeds & such ahead of time to make the soil easier to dig in prep for the real solarization. Since your bed is already ready, you could plant a cover crop which you til in in spring, or plant winter/spring blooming annuals (like mentioned in the other thread), collect their seeds when they are done, and then solarize early next summer. I'm going to go ahead and try to do some of the areas in our back yard to sprout as many of the weedy seeds ahead of time... then cook them or freeze them (depending on what comes up and when) a slightly different approach. Apparently when you use clear plastic in winter you make a greenhouse effect. Not sure if the black sprout s then smothers. Since i have leftover clear, that's what i'll try.

Carole- one last quote i found online on solarizing-

Advise to use black plastic. This keeps the light out, gets very hot underneath and generally kills everything. We often use this in winter and remove the plastic when we are ready to plant in a clean bed.
john

but i have no other info- he could be in a much warmer climate. Everything i read about solarizing emphasizes that you should use clear plastic, as thin as you can get. Might be worth a try, though!

Yes, I saw the same advice, confirmed by a response to a GW poster I found through a search on GW. I don't know where he is, but he speaks of snow, so....

Here's what he said:
I apply black plastic sheeting as soon as the ground is free of crops, cleaning it off first, then tilling and watering well. I weight part of the edges with stones and leave it on till next year, it stops the snow compression, allowing sewing seeds without tilling again.
I tried using clear plastic, but the weeds just grew as normal.
Black plastic starts the growth, but with the lack of light they just die off.
I also believe there are some of the bugs which cannot survive in the dark, as I haven't had potato bugs for about 5 years.
Try it, you won't be disappointed.
Regards Dave......

Cool! I'll pass this along to the co-op i'm part of now... they'll definitely be interested. Maybe i'll save my clear stuff for summer and get some cheap black stuff for this winter.

I have one big section that is pretty much solid Bermuda grass (grrrrrr!) I am thinking about covering it all with black plastic for the winter just to see how well it fries and then helps break down everything before I plant next spring.

A big surprise to me at my last house/garden was using plastic as a mulch. I used cheap black plastic sheeting and cut one foot circles out of it and planted stuff in those holes. I had a soaker hose stretched underneath the plastic but I never hooked it up. When it rained the water would puddle and soak into the soil through the plant holes or through any cracks in the layers (like at the seams). I put a leaf and wood chip mulch layer on top of all that - kept it thin to keep weed seeds from sprouting in it. The mulch kept it all from over heating in the summer. I hardly had to water that section of the garden. The plastic kept the soil from losing water.

So, I'm thinking - use the plastic to knock back the weeds and then just plant through it in the spring.