Just the other day, I discovered a partially finished bottle of Lucozade placed in the euphorbia trough by one of the scaffolders. A visiting architect joked, “Are you sure that’s Lucozade?” giving me a new perspective.
All this is to say, the garden is in disarray. Sometimes neglect has its perks; after returning from holiday, 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 troublesome weeds like a prickly weed and robinia saplings from the neighbour’s tree, while leaving the good stuff. Then, in the open patches, I’ll be sowing green manure.
Green manure are superheroes when it comes to boosting soil quality.
A fellow garden writer has written about green manure, 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 garden goals are simple and steady – and improving the soil is my main priority. To update concerned readers, the scaffold is for roof repairs, and the garden boundaries are still wobbly, but the neighbours agree with replacing them.
Cover crops work wonders for soil health. Bare soil invites weeds, which is why unwanted plants pop up. 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 lovely blooms – but their role is to thrive rather than look decorative. After they’ve grown, you can turn them under, chop them for mulch, or leave them on the surface for earthworms to pull down. The real magic happens underground.
Autumn is perfect for sowing these overwintering crops. My selection includes forage rye, which breaks up heavy earth, Italian ryegrass, vetch, and beans that aerate soil.
There’s satisfaction in sowing something that won’t stay forever – on the surface, anyway.
