[Kleftiwallah]

A simple question...Good evening everyone,

do you cover your bare ground over winter?
Cheers,  Tony.+

[Yorkie]

No.

 

[Fairy Plotmother]

I have this year for the first time.

[mumofstig]

Yes

[Aunt Sally]

Yes, with straw from the local stables, where we also get manure.

[Growster...]

Yes, with the eighty-five tons of leaves which we get plonked on our garden every Autumn...

:0~

[Kleftiwallah]

Just a slight difference of ideas/answers there!  So I'll cover half, but do I divide the bed laterally or longitudinally ? ? ?

Cheers,   Tony.

[jaydig]

I cover mine because it's so much easier to dig over in the Spring when just about everything needs attention at once.  I didn't cover it last winter, and it must have cost me about three weeks' extra time trying to catch up.

[New shoot]

Just a slight difference of ideas/answers there!  So I'll cover half, but do I divide the bed laterally or longitudinally ? ? ?

Cheers,   Tony.

I have covered areas where I won’t have a crop in the ground until later on in the spring i.e. where the beans, squash, tomatoes and sweet corn are going.  The potato patch is not covered, nor the places where I want to grow cabbage and greens, because they will be in cultivation far earlier in the season.  The soil is all prepared in those areas.  If I had not got around to doing that yet, I would probably cover them as well until spring, so they were easier to deal with.

That help any ? 

[Stewarty]

I aim to cover, either with over-winter green manure, usually a grazing rye and vetch mix, or with mulch, ideally well-rotted horse manure, or maybe well-rotted wood chips over cardboard. Just sometimes, when I'm trying to re-claim a grassy/weedy bit on my son's plot, I just use Mypex woven fabric....