It's that time of year when many gardeners and growers have been putting bare veg and flower beds to bed for winter. As with everything else gardening and growing related there are so many ways of going about this and no wrongs or rights, just pros and cons based on what you plan to happen in a bed in the springtime.
What are your ways of taking care of bare beds over winter and why?
- Covering in black plastic - great at cutting out the light to prevent weeds growing. Though worth considering who you might be making a great habitat for underneath.
- Covering in cardboard or straw or hay - suppresses weeds (though perhaps not as fully as black plastic) whilst providing a carbon rich mulch as it breaks down.
- Sowing or planting out over-wintering crops - such as garlic, onion sets and broad beans. Which will grow well through a straw or hay mulch (which also suppresses weed growth).
- Letting the "weeds" grow - the soil wants to grow plants, so letting weeds grow and then pulling them before planting in spring, is a way to support the soil life and prevent erosion and compaction from heavy rains.
- Sowing a green manure - giving the soil plants to grow that you want it to; including Vetch, Phacelia, Field or Broad Beans and Winter Radishes. All of which will support soil life whilst growing, protect the soil from compaction and erosion, and will provide early flowers for the pollinators. And all of which are easier (than weeds) to chop or pull in Spring and lay down as a mulch.
A final word in support and celebration of plant diversity.
Be it over winter or throughout the main growing season, a more diverse range of plants in a bed is good for soil life. Different plants with different root lengths will bring nutrients (such as photosynthesised sugars) down into the soil at varying depths, thus feeding the soil life that the plants themselves are dependent upon. In Spring when a green manure has grown big and you are ready to cut or pull it, you could leave a few plants on an edge of the bed to maintain the habitat for pollinators and helpful predators, as well as for the beauty of it.