I recently found a half-empty bottle of Lucozade placed in the euphorbia trough by one of the scaffolders. An architect friend joked, “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; coming back from a trip, I spotted a sunflower sprouting in the back corner.
This week, though, some urgent tidying is underway. Being six months pregnant, I’ve enlisted a local gardener to remove troublesome weeds like a prickly weed and robinia saplings from the neighbour’s tree, but keeping desirable plants. Then, in the newly cleared patches, I’ll be sowing cover crops.
Green manure are superheroes when it comes to improving soil health.
My gardening friend Claire has previously discussed cover crops, as they are essential in crop rotation for vegetable plots. However, the only things I’m picking from my garden right now are a few scrumped apples and some woody herbs.
My ambitions for the garden are simple and steady – and improving the soil is my main priority. To update concerned readers, the scaffolding is for roof repairs, and the garden boundaries are yet to be fixed, but the neighbours agree with replacing them.
Green manure are like superheroes for soil health. Soil likes to be covered, which is why unwanted plants pop up. Yet by sowing vigorous crops, you can suppress weeds, bring in bees, host pest-eating creatures, and enrich the soil with nutrients.
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. Once established, you can turn them under, cut them for compost, or let them decompose for worms to pull down. Their work happens below the surface.
Now is the ideal time for sowing these overwintering crops. I’ve chosen forage rye, which breaks up heavy earth, a nitrogen-lifter, vetch, and beans that aerate soil.
It feels rewarding in planting seeds knowing it’s temporary – on the surface, anyway.
