Just the other day, I discovered a half-empty bottle of Lucozade placed in the euphorbia trough by one of the scaffolders. A visiting architect commented, “Are you sure that’s Lucozade?” which made me see it differently.
In short, the garden is in disarray. Sometimes neglect has its perks; coming back from a trip, I spotted a sunflower growing in the back corner.
Now, however, some urgent tidying is underway. As I’m expecting a baby, I’ve enlisted a local gardener to tackle invasive plants like green alkanet and robinia saplings from the neighbour’s tree, but keeping desirable plants. Next, in the open patches, I’ll be sowing cover crops.
Green manure are superheroes when it comes to boosting soil quality.
A fellow garden writer has written about green manure, as they are essential in seasonal planting for vegetable plots. However, the only things I’m harvesting from my garden right now are a few scrumped apples and some woody herbs.
My ambitions for the garden are modest and consistent – and enhancing soil health 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.
Cover crops are like superheroes for soil health. Soil likes to be covered, which is why weeds appear. But by sowing vigorous crops, you can suppress weeds, bring in bees, 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 role is to thrive rather than be admired. Once established, you can turn them under, cut them for compost, or leave them on the surface for worms to incorporate. Their work happens underground.
Now is the ideal time for sowing these cold-season plants. I’ve chosen rye grass, which breaks up heavy earth, a nitrogen-lifter, a weed-suppressor, and field beans.
It feels rewarding in planting seeds that won’t stay forever – on the surface, anyway.
