I recently found a partially finished bottle of Lucozade left behind in the euphorbia trough by one of the scaffolders. An architect friend joked, “Are you sure that’s Lucozade?” which made me see it differently.
All this is to say, 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 urgent tidying is underway. As I’m expecting a baby, I’ve hired a local gardener to remove invasive plants like green alkanet and robinia saplings from the neighbour’s tree, while leaving the good stuff. Next, in the open patches, I’ll be sowing cover crops.
Green manure are superheroes when it comes to improving soil health.
My gardening friend Claire has written about cover crops, as they are essential in crop rotation for vegetable plots. But, the only things I’m picking from my garden right now are a few foraged apples and some woody herbs.
My ambitions for the garden are modest and consistent – and enhancing soil health is top of the list. To update concerned readers, the scaffold is for roof repairs, and the garden boundaries are yet to be fixed, but the neighbours agree with replacing them.
Cover crops are like superheroes for your garden’s foundation. Bare soil invites weeds, which is why unwanted plants pop up. Yet by sowing fast-growing plants, you can control weeds, attract pollinators, host pest-eating creatures, and fix nitrogen.
Cover crops aren’t always showy – though some, like certain lupin varieties and bird’s foot trefoil, have pretty flowers – but their role is to grow vigorously rather than be admired. After they’ve grown, you can turn them under, chop them for mulch, or leave them on the surface for worms to incorporate. The real magic happens underground.
Autumn is perfect for sowing these overwintering crops. I’ve chosen rye grass, great for clay soil, a nitrogen-lifter, vetch, and beans that aerate soil.
It feels rewarding in planting seeds that won’t stay forever – on the surface, anyway.
