The Benefits Of Never Being Naked

Covering your soil at this time of year has many benefits. Your garden beds have put in the hard yards over the summer and now it's time to give back and add in.

The Benefits Of Never Being Naked

There are many ways to give back in your garden and my favourite way is as I'm taking away I'm adding in.Greencrops are a fantastic way of doing this

Once your bed has finished for the season chop whatever was growing at the base-don't pull it out as we don't want to disturb the root structure and unless it was diseased we want it to go back into the soil as goodness. Spread it out as best as you can.

Scatter over the top with your seed blend I like a mix of lupin and mustard as they add in the desired nitrogen and mustard also acts as a soil cleansing helping remove any nasties.

These also help suppress the weeds that will pop up once spring comes around again.

Once everything has come up but before it goes to seed chop it back and lay it across the garden to break down back into the soil

I've also planted under our fruit trees heaps of beneficial ground crops-strawberries which are a great green mulch, rhubarb have a long tap root so is great at drawing up nutrients from deep down. Heaps of flowering plants such as borage and camomile which bring in the pollinators.

And comfrey which is every gardeners favourite plant- easy to grow, easy to divide and gives a heap amount of bulk chop and drop return for little effort.

There is still time to get some things in the garden too but don't leave it too much longer.

Go out and buy some brassicas seedling, they will give early to mid winter if the frosts aren't too bad to start but definitely get lettuce, spinach, rocket, silver beet and coriander in as they will continue for a wee bit after the frosts hit us in central Otago.

Plant with spring in mind leeks and boardbeans. I like to get kale and cavolo nero in too as they are very frost hardy and will give over winter even covered in snow.

This is the time of year to do a tidy up, get your gardens covered cause no one likes weeding and check up on your compost, with all this tidying comes huge amounts of green waste, use it don't get rid of it. Make a pile in a corner or garden bed, make sure it's damp then cover with old carpet or cardboard and leave to do its thing till spring comes around.

And one big free thing is about to happen in all our garden............ dried leaves, a massive free product that is handy in your compost as carbon or on your gardens as a great mulch/weed suppresser. Keep it store it use it it's a fantastic add to any garden.

As the garden slows down take the time to reflect on the season, slap yourself on the back for a job well down, take a breath and then pull out that seed catalogue and start dreaming of the coming season.