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How to Improve Your Soil Over Winter



Today’s video is all about using the winter to make better soil. We discuss the dos and don’ts of cover cropping for soil health, as well as mulch and a whole bunch else.

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22 Comments

  1. Peter V

    I have made a few new beds and didn't plant any cover crops on 'em (it was too late). Currently running a mini trial on these with walnut leaves under a layer of compost vs different fruit tree leaves, hopefully confirming a hypothesis of slower decomposition of walnut leaves containing tannins and juglon vs other fruit trees. May try use them as weed suppressant on pathways too, covering them with woodchips. Oh and winter is always good for fixing and building stuff in the workshop. Cheers from eastern Europe!

  2. Bill Astell

    Love your comment that "if the soil is not being fed it's feeding on itself". It took me half my life to grasp that concept but once I began focusing on feeding the soil my gardens exploded.

  4. George de Alth

    What do you think of using leaves or chopped up leaves as a winter mulch?
    I live in southern central Michigan (zone 5b), and while I do cover crop some beds I can't a cover crop started much after September 15 in beds that are still giving me veggies.

  6. J's Grass Fed Garden

    I live in southern Vermont zone 5a how early do you think I can sow directly into my low tunnels? which is just one layer of agrion cover.

  7. jeffry de meyer

    Can't you have a layer of dark muclhing material on top of the light stuff by having a portion of it partially compost earlier in the season?

  12. Stephanie Somer

    I was intrigued by your "living walkways", and it brought a question to mind. If I were to use clover or other similar nitrogen fixer in walkways, would the nitrogen from them be transported laterally to benefit the beds themselves?

  13. Pamela Hoskins

    I've had really good results with deep litter mulch composting using my chickens while they are enclosed in the winter. I put a deep layer(12"-18" deep) of fall leaves in the enclosure and the chickens add poop and turn the the leaves constantly. Then in the spring I remove all the litter and either stack to finish or apply directly under fruit trees or other plants. The great thing about the leaves, it keeps the temperature in the hen house a few degrees warmer and there is zero smell from the chicken litter. It is good stuff.

  14. scottatutube1

    How is it that your name is "No-Till Growers" but many of your plots look like the soil has been worked up very finely? How do you get your plots to look like finely tilled soil without working the ground?

  15. John Morgan

    Have you considered colonizing your wood chip paths with an edible mushroom? Thats what Im doing this winter in every area that Im dropping woodchips at.

  16. Grant the plant man

    I'm in the tropics. Winter is tomato & peppers season.
    Simple neglect creates neck high cover crops in a few months. Weeds/grass/legumes/tree seedlings.
    I've been layering timber with grass/leaf/weed clippings for mulch. Both chainsaws were down, so I was only using wood that was rotten enough to snap by hand.
    Now the wet season has kicked in early there's dozens of species of wild mushrooms/fungi surging under the fruit trees..

  22. Josh Mitchell

    Question–I have had great success with composting straw/hay bales with a 21 day composting method prior to planting in them. With that said would a deep hay mulching in the winter followed by quick composting of that large area as if it were a straw bale be viable? In theory I don't see why not? Thoughts?

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