If you till your garden in the Fall, it will help keep your soil from eroding. Where WE live, it's so wet, that we get a LOT of molded vegetation, and that's where I would put it.
Straw bales can make a wonderful raised bed to over winter some crops. You can use the bales to form the bed, partially fill it with soil and put some old glass windows or fiberglass or plastic over the top to make a sheltered coldframe.