What to plant after plowing before winter?

Question

A common saying is that you should never leave the soil without any vegetative growth. We plowed our farm and planted garlic on half of it. The other half is empty.

What is the appropriate culture to plant on the empty half before the winter? Our goal is to take care of the soil and make it easy to plant potatoes, carrots and other vegetables in the spring. That is, just by using cultivator.

I am thinking about wheat, triticale and spelt, but I am not sure how difficult it would be to work it into ground before vegetable planting.

I am from south central Europe. Our current temperature is about 6-12°C (42-54°F) and freezing is not expected until mid of Decemeber.

Answer 1

You will have to do some sort of research for your area, but common winter cover crops include:

• winter wheat
• various clovers and vetches
• oats
• oilseed radish (in places without hard winters)

vetches and clovers add nitrogen... some cover crops like buckwheat don't work at all as a winter cover crop...