6. Plant Cover crops

Here is one of my favorites: Plant cover crops such as rye or hairy thatch.  Cover crops do two things: First of all, they help prevent weeds from growing so rampantly during the next growing season, and second, and most importantly, cover crops provide nitrogen to your soil.  This is called nitrogen fixing. Nitrogen fixing works like this:

Nitrogen for plants is an essential part of your garden and is abundant in the world as a gas, but is not abundant in the soil.   Because most plants cannot use nitrogen as a gas, you must add Nitrogen to the soil.  You can help add naturally occurring nitrogen to your soil for your plants to use by using Nitrogen Fixing plants. These plants work with bacteria called Rhizobium to pull the nitrogen from the air. This common bacterium, Rhizobium infects some plants such as legumes. These plants then help the bacterial draw Nitrogen from the air. The bacterium converts this nitrogen gas and then stores it in the roots of the plant. When these plants die and you turn them over into your soil, the nitrogen that has been store in the plant nodules is returned to the soil.  Planting cover crops that fix nitrogen can add nitrogen to your soil.  These crops include annual rye and hairy vetch.  Cover crops should generally be planted from mid August to late September, but if you are planting a winter garden, you can plant cover crops between your rows.