Ground preparation

[Laura Hillier]

Hi Everyone,

We may all be enjoying the wonderful summer harvests at the moment, but it is never too early to think ahead!

What do all of you do towards the end of the main part of the growing season to keep your ground in good condition? Also, how do you make sure that your empty spaces don't turn into havens for weeds?


Answers may be edited and published in the September issue of Grow Your Own.


Laura

[alldigging]

Mulch!
I'm going to try and cover every spare bit of soil up this autumn with a good layer or whatever mulch I can get hold of. The worms work the soil underneath then and do lots of the hard work for me.

[PyreneesPlot]

Mulch or green manure. I have just lifted garlic and shallots in a space that will have broad beans overwintering so I'm going to barrow a load of compost onto the bed, before sowing the broadies later on in the year.

[VirginVegGrower]

I sow green manures. Having pulled the onions and garlic, I have broadcast sown white clover, which I chop in before it flowers. I then top that off with the compost I've made through the summer. If I pull a crop out and I am planting another in its place, I sprinkle hoof and horn, rake in and plant two weeks later. These crops generally overwinter or occupy my autumn months, so they get a muck mulch or compost top dressing, without green manure sown. That bed then gets a green manure sown in the Spring and chopped in for early Summer plantings.

[Mikey]

Well 2 of my potato rows have just been finished and have been thoroughly dug over, I still have carrots and salads to plant, and my Kale will be transplanted as soon as I feel the weather is right.

As soon as the area is finished for the year I dig it over top dress with some manure where appropriate and cover with some black plastic. When I've cut the lawn for the last time, I pull the covers off and let the winter frosts at the ground.

Come the spring then I'll rake the ground over and recover to warm the soil prior to planting all over again.

[Two_Sheds]

What do all of you do towards the end of the main part of the growing season to keep your ground in good condition?

In August I sow green manures. Leaving it too late in the year means they don't grow enough to provide ground cover over the winter. You need to start sowing them before autumn arrives and the days are too cool & short.

I don't use horsemuck, so green manures are very important for adding humus to my soil.

how do you make sure that your empty spaces don't turn into havens for weeds?

I don't have any bare earth, ever. Either a crop goes in, or I leave the weeds to grow and treat them as green manures, cutting them down only when they flower (so they don't go to seed) or when I need the space for a crop.
I don't dig, so I cut up the weeds & green manures with scissors and just drop them on the soil surface as a mulch. This approach* has improved my soil tremendously, and vastly reduces the weeds because the soil is kept covered at all times.


* read One Straw for a full explanation of the technique

[Snadger]

If possible I like to keep every bed with a crop on it at all times, 365 days of the year. The best mulch is a crop. It takes some doing but every bit of bare soil reeks of failure to me.

[hawthorns]

i try and have a follow up crop ready to go in, all started off in modules winter cabbage, leeks, kale, swede, 2nd sowing of lettuce, broccoli, psb, over wintering onions and garlic. these will go in after summer harvests

[Irish-Veg]

yesterday I got 2 digger loads of cow manure.. this years, do you think its too fresh to use even if dug in? wanted it for my pumpkin's...

But i'm getting another trailer load of 2 year old rotted down straw/manure which is now a fine dust, going to dig that in autumn with a bit of seaweed.

[Veggielot]

I use a mixture of mulch and cardboard. I am trying to raise the soil level in my beds so use home made compost on some as a mulch on some and carboard on the others. I try to fix this in with my crop rotation so compost goes on the beds that are going to be used for veg that need the boost and carboard for the beds that are going to have veg that dont like recently manured ground.

[Mikey]

yesterday I got 2 digger loads of cow manure.. this years, do you think its too fresh to use even if dug in? wanted it for my pumpkin's...

But i'm getting another trailer load of 2 year old rotted down straw/manure which is now a fine dust, going to dig that in autumn with a bit of seaweed.

You can use the fresh stuff, just top it off with a good 4 inches of soil or the rotted manure. If the foliage of your pumpkins is in contact with the fresh manure it will burn.

[carolineholding]

I mulch with manure or compost and if the weeds have been really on top then i cardboard and then mulch, for instance i have one bed where there seems to suddenly be lots of bindweed -i don't know why but I'll put down a thick layer of cardboard there when i've taken my toms out

[solway cropper]

There's never much bare ground on my plot but when a spare bit does come available before I have a follow on crop I apply thick mulches of home-made compost and just plant through them. Just about everything I grow now is module-sown so I usually have something to fill the spaces. I've never really seen the point of green manures. If you can't eat it why grow it.

[JustPotteringAbout]

If I can find any bare soil ,which is unlikely as when something comes out something goes in, l'll.
Dig in chopped seaweed and fluff up the soil a bit.
Though this is my first year, I probably won't need much mulch as I've mulched throughout the season with coffee and seaweed and have been chopping weeds and either leaving them on the area of soil where they came from, or stuffing them in the top of the feeding/watering hoppers (carpet roll tube) sunk around the beds.
I've some manure, roll mulches and stuff on hand.