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Consider a cover crop
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If your garden is finished for the season, you may want to try enriching and conserving the soil with a cover crop. Planting a grasses like winter rye or low growing plants like clover in your empty garden plot will add nutrients to the soil as it rests during the winter. They also prevent soil erosion. Cover crops can also contribute to the otherwise empty winter garden by with their foliage. In the spring simply mow the taller grasses and turn under the cover crop. After the soil rests for a bit it will be ready for planting.
Also called green manure, cover crops can also break up hard soil because many types have long roots that reach down into the soil. This will help successive plants that have more shallow roots. In summer low growing green manures like clover can also be used as living mulch and help to keep weeds down and the soil moist. It is also a good idea to grow a cover crop in a bad where perennials will be planted later. You can plant cover crops at any time of the growing season when you may need to leave a bed unplanted for a while. Below are a few common cover crops.
Alfalfa has deep roots so can work to break up hard soil and is a nitrogen fixer.
Buckwheat doesn’t fix nitrogen like many other cover crops but it is still useful and attracts beneficial insects.
Clover is a nitrogen fixing green manure that also makes a good lawn replacement.
German Millet is a grass that is good for a summer cover crop. It tolerates heat well and grows quickly.
Hairy vetch is fuzzy and bears purple flowers. It also is good for nitrogen fixing.
Winter rye is perhaps the most often used cover crop, particularly in the colder part of the year. It is quick growing so it is easy to get a quick green manure fix in the garden before spring happens.
Field peas are very versatile. You can eat these low growing plants and they are said to be very effective against weeds as they become very dense.
To plant your cover crop, cultivate the soil and scatter the seeds. Rake the soil over the cover crop seeds and water them well. Plant them at least a month before the first frost, but some crops like winter rye can germinate in temperatures as low as 33 degrees. Cover crops need little care, but if they get too tall you may want to cut them and put the trimmings on the compost pile. To use the bed for other plants in the spring, mow the green manure down and turn it into the soil as soon as the soil as workable. Let them rot for a couple of weeks before using the plot for new plantings.
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