Prepping Garden Beds for Growing Season

Red Russian kale (the darker green plant) was planted in this bed. As it grew, it wasn’t well-tended, so the weeds grew along with it. Now it is the end of the growing season. What should we do with this bed? How can we reduce the weed pressure for next year?

First, we can go through and pull the seed heads. OR we can just mow it all down with the lawn mower.

Then we might take thick tarps and cover the bed. This will kill back lots of what has been growing in this bed. It may sit like this until we are ready to plant the bed in the spring.

Once the weeds are cut back, we can plant a cover crop. This is some grass or grain that will grow in the bed. It will add organic matter to the soil, help hold water, and provide nutrients to the bed. Here is a large bed that we planted with oats and peas.

The oats are the grass-like plants and the peas are the legume-like plants. This cover crop grows well in the fall. In the winter it will die back and we can rake it away to plant the bed in the spring.

Finally in the spring we will add compost and minerals, and the bed will be ready to plant.

If you want more information, Maine Potato Lady has a good description about cover cropping and Fedco Seeds has a good description of various cover crops.