How do you treat your soil during the winter?

[EbonyH]

Hi Grapes,

With the current heatwave it may be slightly difficult to think of the below, but we would be grateful if you can share your thoughts on this!


How do you treat your soil over the winter? Do you let it rest, do you add organic material or perhaps you prefer to grow a green manure crop.


Many thanks

Your comments may be edited and printed in the December issue of GYO magazine

[VirginVegGrower]

I keep a bed going with overwintering onions and garlic. This bed has no special treatment as I feed in Spring. I need the bulbs to grow hardy with no soft lush growth. They need to be tough. I have two beds with crimson clover sown, which will be chopped and dug in for Winter then rested. One bed with overwintering brassicas. The final bed has my leeks, overwintering broad beans and early peas. All beds will be mulch topped as and when they become empty.

[The Large One]

as the last of the crops come out i tend to cover the soil with tarps or weed matting to keep the rain from washing nutrients out.
Some parts i put in green manure but mostly cover and let rest
first load of manure should be arriving any day so stack that ready then peel back the tarps and spread it out and allow to overwinter and let the worms do their stuff then lightly till it in early spring

[Snadger]

I am starting to 'bond' with my soil.
Each time I harvest a crop I analyse the structure and texture of the small area I've just lifted the crop from by running it through my hands I check for the amount of organic matter, how easily it is to work,the surface fauna, how friable it is etc. (Think i'm turning into David Bellamy!!!!!!)
If required, I'll add some organic matter (usually home made compost)then instantly plant or sow a differrent crop, prefering not to leave any bare soil for long if at all possible. Early winter I will probably get round to mulching all areas and around crops with an organic mulch of some description
It takes a wee bit of planning to have stuff ready for planting'sowing at all times, but in the long run it's worth it.

[Aberdeenplotter]

In a well worked scheme of rotation there is no real need to do anything special over winter except to prepare for next year. My vacant beds are dug over roughly, as close as possible to winter (difficult to time sometimes) and then left for the weather to break down any clods over winter. Spuds get a good feed with an application of fym in the trenches in the spring time and that feed really sets up everything in the scheme of rotation. Brassica bed gets limed close to planting time and other than that, nowt else done till March

[SarzWix]

What I'd like to do is clear as much of the weeds as possible and cover all bare soil with cardboard and manure. What will actually happen is that I'll get caught up in my Open University course, get very little done, and then it will be a mad rush trying to prep everything in February/March...