Soil in need of some love? Plant green manure in your garden and you’ll enrich your soil.
Just the other day, I discovered a partially finished bottle of an energy drink left behind in the euphorbia trough by one of the scaffolders. A visiting architect commented, “Are you sure that’s Lucozade?” giving me a new perspective.
In short, the garden is in disarray. But there’s a lot to be said for negligence; after returning from holiday, I spotted a sunflower growing in the back corner.
This week, though, some necessary firefighting is underway. Being six months pregnant, I’ve hired a local gardener to remove troublesome weeds like green alkanet and robinia saplings from the neighbour’s tree, while leaving the good stuff. Then, in the open patches, I’ll be sowing cover crops.
Cover crops act like heroes when it comes to boosting soil quality.
A fellow garden writer has written about cover crops, as they play a key role in crop rotation for vegetable plots. But, the only things I’m picking from my garden right now are a few scrumped apples and some hardy herbs.
My ambitions for the garden are simple and steady – and enhancing soil health is my main priority. For those wondering, the scaffold is for roof repairs, and the garden boundaries are yet to be fixed, but the neighbours are on board with replacing them.
Cover crops are like superheroes for soil health. Soil likes to be covered, which is why weeds appear. Yet by sowing fast-growing plants, you can suppress weeds, attract pollinators, host pest-eating creatures, and fix nitrogen.
Cover crops may not look exciting – though some, like certain lupin varieties and a flowering legume, have pretty flowers – but their purpose is to thrive rather than be admired. Once established, you can turn them under, cut them for compost, or let them decompose for earthworms to pull down. Their work happens underground.
Now is the ideal time for sowing these overwintering crops. I’ve chosen rye grass, which breaks up heavy earth, a nitrogen-lifter, vetch, and field beans.
There’s satisfaction in planting seeds that won’t stay forever – on the surface, anyway.
