Just the other day, I discovered a half-empty bottle of Lucozade placed in the euphorbia trough by one of the scaffolders. An architect friend commented, “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 sprouting in the back corner.
This week, though, some urgent tidying is underway. As I’m expecting a baby, I’ve hired a local gardener to remove troublesome weeds 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 cover crops.
Cover crops act like heroes when it comes to boosting soil quality.
A fellow garden writer has written about cover crops, as they are essential in crop rotation for edible gardens. However, the only things I’m picking from my garden right now are a few foraged apples and some woody herbs.
My ambitions for the garden are modest and consistent – and improving the soil is top of the list. For those wondering, the scaffolding is for roof repairs, and the garden boundaries are yet to be fixed, but the neighbours agree with the plan.
Green manure work wonders for your garden’s foundation. Bare soil invites weeds, which is why unwanted plants pop up. Yet by sowing vigorous crops, you can suppress weeds, attract pollinators, shelter beneficial insects, and fix nitrogen.
Cover crops may not look exciting – though some, like certain lupin varieties and a flowering legume, have lovely blooms – but their purpose is to thrive rather than look decorative. After they’ve grown, you can dig them into the soil, cut them for compost, or leave them on the surface for worms to pull down. Their work happens below the surface.
Now is the ideal time for sowing these overwintering crops. My selection includes forage rye, which breaks up heavy earth, a nitrogen-lifter, vetch, and field beans.
It feels rewarding in planting seeds knowing it’s temporary – on the surface, anyway.
