BUSINESS MEMO: RYEGRASS GOOD FOR SOIL

After you clean up this year's vegetable garden, plant it with annual ryegrass.

"Ryegrass loosens the soil and adds green manure," says Chris Starbuck, University of Missouri extension horticulture specialist. "When you turn under the ryegrass next spring, the soil will be easy to work and nutrients will be slowly released

"Even if the winter is so cold the ryegrass dies, it still makes a nice mulch," said Starbuck.