They Garden Best Who Garden Least

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Bare soil will be splashed by rain drops and blown by the wind. If it is on a slope, heavy rains or the spring thaw may cause it to erode.

Cover Crops

If you are heavily into neatness or if there is a pest in the garden whose cycle you really want to break, you can till and plant a cover crop. The only winter cover crop I have used is winter rye. This should be planted pretty soon after the first frost so it can start growing before the ground freezes. It germinates in cool soil and will put out enough roots to hold the soil. The root system will provide a home for some of the soil life.

The grass cover will also protect the surface of the soil. Winter rye will get growing again early in the spring, before the ground is dry enough to work. All of this growth should be turned into the soil where it will act as a green manure. I especially like using winter rye when preparing new ground. In this case I want to disturb the soil community, especially the plant community.

There are also some insects that reside in sod that I would rather not have hanging around in my garden. Wireworms are the most notable. They don't cause a lot of damage but they will work their way into potatoes. Wireworms are rare in a mature garden. By tilling sod in the fall and planting winter rye, you weaken the grasses and weeds that are growing there just as winter is coming on. The rye you plant is given the advantage. It will come on like gangbusters in the spring, choking out just about everything else.

Then when you till in the rye, it will stay tilled in. You won't find it cropping up where you don't want it. There is one problem with planting winter rye in the garden after the first frost. Not everything in the garden is killed by frost. Brussels sprouts, broccoli, cabbage, lettuce, and kale are crops we want to keep growing as long as possible. When they are gone our fresh green vegetables are gone until next spring. We get lettuce from the garden until Thanksgiving if we plan our planting properly. Kale, if you can keep the deer away from it, can be harvested from beneath the snow. Parsnips will stay in the ground all winter for early spring harvest.

Carrots can be kept in the garden if covered with enough mulch. I put whole bales right over the row just before the ground freezes. These hardy plants are going to be in the way of neatening up the whole garden by tilling and planting a cover crop. One solution is to make sure you plan the garden so that these crops are grouped together. Then you can leave this section while planting a cover crop over the rest of the garden. What to do with the area that didn't get the cover crop? You can give it the top-of-the-line treatment. As crops vacate their garden space you can spread some manure and then cover the manure with a mulch of hay or straw. The mulch will hold in the nutrients and protect the soil from the weather. The soil microorganisms will love you for providing for and protecting their community.

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