I recently found a partially finished bottle of Lucozade placed in the euphorbia trough by one of the scaffolders. An architect friend commented, “Are you sure that’s Lucozade?” giving me a new perspective.
In short, the garden is a bit of a mess. Sometimes neglect has its perks; 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 professional gardener to remove invasive plants 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 vegetable plots. However, the only things I’m harvesting from my garden right now are a few foraged apples and some hardy herbs.
My ambitions for the garden are modest and consistent – and improving the soil is top of the list. For those wondering, the scaffold is for roof repairs, and the garden boundaries are still wobbly, but the neighbours are on board with the plan.
Cover crops are like superheroes for soil health. Soil likes to be covered, which is why unwanted plants pop up. Yet by sowing fast-growing plants, you can suppress 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 pretty flowers – but their role is to grow vigorously rather than be admired. Once established, you can dig them into the soil, chop them for mulch, or leave them on the surface for earthworms to pull down. The real magic happens below the surface.
Autumn is perfect for sowing these cold-season plants. My selection includes rye grass, great for clay soil, Italian ryegrass, vetch, and beans that aerate soil.
There’s satisfaction in sowing something that won’t stay forever – on the surface, anyway.
