Soil in need of some love? Plant cover crops in your garden and you’ll reap the benefits.
I recently found a half-empty bottle of Lucozade left behind in the euphorbia trough by one of the scaffolders. A visiting architect joked, “Are you sure that’s Lucozade?” giving me a new perspective.
In short, the garden is in disarray. Sometimes neglect has its perks; after returning from holiday, I spotted a sunflower sprouting in the back corner.
This week, though, some urgent tidying is underway. As I’m expecting a baby, I’ve hired a professional gardener to remove troublesome weeds like a prickly weed and robinia saplings from the neighbour’s tree, while leaving the good stuff. Next, in the newly cleared patches, I’ll be sowing green manure.
Green manure are superheroes when it comes to improving soil health.
My gardening friend Claire has written about cover crops, as they play a key role in crop rotation for edible gardens. However, 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. To update concerned readers, the scaffolding is for roof repairs, and the garden boundaries are still wobbly, but the neighbours are on board with replacing them.
Green manure work wonders for soil health. Bare soil invites weeds, which is why weeds appear. But by sowing fast-growing plants, you can control weeds, attract pollinators, shelter beneficial insects, and fix nitrogen.
Cover crops may not look exciting – though some, like lupins ‘Blue Sonet’ and a flowering legume, have lovely blooms – but their role is to grow vigorously rather than look decorative. Once established, you can turn them under, chop them for mulch, or leave them on the surface for worms to pull down. Their work happens underground.
Now is the ideal time for sowing these overwintering crops. My selection includes forage rye, which breaks up heavy earth, Italian ryegrass, vetch, and beans that aerate soil.
There’s satisfaction in planting seeds knowing it’s temporary – on the surface, anyway.
