I recently found a half-empty bottle of an energy drink 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.
All this is to say, the garden is a bit of a mess. But there’s a lot to be said for negligence; coming back from a trip, 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 enlisted a professional gardener to remove invasive plants like green alkanet and robinia saplings from the neighbour’s tree, but keeping desirable plants. Then, in the newly cleared patches, I’ll be sowing green manure.
Cover crops act like heroes when it comes to improving soil health.
A fellow garden writer has previously discussed cover crops, as they play a key role in crop rotation for vegetable plots. But, the only things I’m harvesting from my garden right now are a few scrumped 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 fences are yet to be fixed, but the neighbours agree with the plan.
Green manure work wonders for soil health. Bare soil invites weeds, which is why weeds appear. But by sowing fast-growing plants, you can suppress weeds, attract pollinators, host pest-eating creatures, and fix nitrogen.
Green manure plants aren’t always showy – though some, like certain lupin varieties and bird’s foot trefoil, have pretty flowers – but their role is to thrive rather than look decorative. After they’ve grown, you can turn them under, cut them for compost, or leave them on the surface for earthworms to pull down. The real magic happens underground.
Now is the ideal time for sowing these overwintering crops. My selection includes forage rye, great for clay soil, a nitrogen-lifter, a weed-suppressor, and field beans.
It feels rewarding in sowing something that won’t stay forever – on the surface, anyway.
