I recently found a half-empty bottle of Lucozade left behind in the euphorbia trough by one of the scaffolders. A visiting architect commented, “Are you sure that’s Lucozade?” giving me a new perspective.
All this is to say, the garden is a bit of a mess. Sometimes neglect has its perks; coming back from a trip, I spotted a sunflower growing in the back corner.
This week, though, some necessary firefighting is underway. As I’m expecting a baby, I’ve hired a professional gardener to remove troublesome weeds like green alkanet and young tree shoots from the neighbour’s tree, but keeping desirable plants. Next, in the newly cleared 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 edible gardens. 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 enhancing soil health is top of the list. For those wondering, the scaffold is for roof repairs, and the garden boundaries are yet to be fixed, but the neighbours are on board with replacing them.
Cover crops work wonders for your garden’s foundation. 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.
Cover crops aren’t always showy – though some, like lupins ‘Blue Sonet’ and a flowering legume, have pretty flowers – but their role is to thrive rather than look decorative. After they’ve grown, you can dig them into the soil, chop them for mulch, or leave them on the surface for earthworms to pull down. The real magic happens below the surface.
Autumn is perfect for sowing these overwintering crops. I’ve chosen rye grass, great for clay soil, Italian ryegrass, a weed-suppressor, and beans that aerate soil.
It feels rewarding in planting seeds that won’t stay forever – on the surface, anyway.
