Just the other day, I discovered a half-empty bottle of an energy drink left behind 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 growing in the back corner.
This week, though, some urgent tidying is underway. As I’m expecting a baby, I’ve hired a professional gardener to tackle invasive plants like green alkanet and robinia saplings from the neighbour’s tree, while leaving the good stuff. Next, in the open patches, I’ll be sowing green manure.
Green manure are superheroes when it comes to improving soil health.
A fellow garden writer has previously discussed green manure, as they play a key role in crop rotation for edible gardens. However, the only things I’m harvesting from my garden right now are a few foraged apples and some hardy herbs.
My ambitions for the garden are modest and consistent – and enhancing soil health is top of the list. To update concerned readers, the scaffolding is for roof repairs, and the garden boundaries are still wobbly, but the neighbours agree with the plan.
Cover crops work wonders for soil health. Soil likes to be covered, which is why unwanted plants pop up. But by sowing fast-growing plants, you can control weeds, attract pollinators, shelter beneficial insects, and fix nitrogen.
Cover crops may not look exciting – though some, like certain lupin varieties and bird’s foot trefoil, have lovely blooms – but their purpose is to thrive rather than look decorative. Once established, you can dig them into the soil, cut them for compost, or leave them on the surface for earthworms to pull down. Their work happens below the surface.
Now is the ideal time for sowing these cold-season plants. My selection includes forage rye, great for clay soil, a nitrogen-lifter, a weed-suppressor, and beans that aerate soil.
There’s satisfaction in planting seeds knowing it’s temporary – on the surface, anyway.
