clearing weeds before winter?

Hi all. My veg plot is covered in weeds of all types, having spent days clearing it in the spring. Is it best to dig them all out now? What happens to the bare earth? Is it too late to sow any type of green manure? The plot isn't massive - approximately 23 feet by 16 .  The only permanent fixture is some raspberry canes which I inherited from the previous owner. So if I clear the ground, and it's too late to sow green manure, would it be worth covering with some sort of weed suppression membrane around the rasps? otherwise I guess that weeds will start growing again?

Secondly, I don't know what variety the raspberries are and they are in two patches. I think they could be autumn variety as we had a good crop late august and september and much bigger berries than the fruits we harvested in the early part of the season. Do I cut all the canes down now, including both non-fruiting and fruiting stems?

thanks in advance for any help.

I was weeding a heavily weed infested potato patch yesterday, hoiking out the potatoes as I slowly progressed, standing on planks to protect the soil from compaction. The weeds came out far easier in the fairly damp earth but the docks were the awkwards ones with roots going down to the centre of the earth    It was a fine day yesterday so I reasoned better do it while the weather is not too awful as I hate freezing my bum off.  Also I needed the potatoes.  I think also that come spring you will want to have clear ground available for planting things in. Indeed you could get some onions, garlic, cabbs and caulis in now if you get it cleared.  You could certainly cover it if you choose to leave it fallow til Spring. You could cover it with well rotted muck or heavy duty sheet mulch, or a green manure (one not too hard to dig in!)

I'm never sure about what to do with rasps but I'm going to cut mine down back to just up from the base as they look like they need a trim 

Raspberries, summer fruiting,cut the canes down to the ground once they have fruited,the stem will look brown & older than the new growth that will be growing at the same time-that will bear fruit next year. Autumn fruiting- cut down in spring before any new growth starts,the fruit will be on that growth in the autumn. Keep weed free & give a mulch of home made compost or well rotted manure when you can.

thanks all for your advice. Think I will try and clear as much as I can if possible. Had a few hours in there this afternoon and the going was not too bad - weeds coming out quite easily so will persevere. 

Just a note on green manure.

I put some crimson clover in last week and its germinated. I think there's a nice week or two coming up so it should get established by time the frosts really hit.

Clover is really dense too to blocks out the weeds well.

Also, this is the perfect time of year to get some japanese (over winter) onion sets and some garlic cloves in the ground. So get some ground cleared and get them in! 

Any weeds you can fork out now are that many weeds less that you don't have to fork out in spring. True, some will germinate and grow over winter but taking out the majority now is less work for all the numerous spring jobs that must be done.

If they are perennial weeds and you do not remove the root, they wil just grow back in spring.

There's no point in short-cuts.

Not sure about the "as always"