Grow some green manure
Don’t leave your soil bare
At this time of year you may have been lucky enough to take over a new allotment or you may have cleared the ground of crops. Whatever you do, don’t leave your soil bare – it’s not good for the ground as vital nutrients can get washed away over the winter. Instead you should grow some green manure.
More information on why you should do this can be found at Dave Hamilton’s excellent post on the benefit of green manures at his selfsufficientish website.
The next question is what type of green manure should you grow? There’s everything from Caliente Mustard to Field beans, from Hungarian Rye Grass to Sweet Clover. This all depends on how long you want to cover the ground, the time of year, your soil type, what’s been grown there before and what you want to grow afterwards.
There’s a useful table that explains the different types of green manures, when to sow them and the benefits they bring to the soil at Green Manure
You can also order your green manure seeds from Green Manure