I recently found 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 in disarray. 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 enlisted a local gardener to remove invasive plants like a prickly weed and robinia saplings from the neighbour’s tree, while leaving the good stuff. Then, in the newly cleared patches, I’ll be sowing cover crops.
Green manure are superheroes when it comes to improving soil health.
My gardening friend Claire has previously discussed green manure, as they are essential in crop rotation for vegetable plots. However, the only things I’m harvesting from my garden right now are a few foraged apples and some woody 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.
Green manure are like superheroes for your garden’s foundation. Bare soil invites weeds, which is why unwanted plants pop up. Yet by sowing fast-growing plants, you can control weeds, attract pollinators, shelter beneficial insects, and fix nitrogen.
Green manure plants may not look exciting – though some, like lupins ‘Blue Sonet’ and bird’s foot trefoil, have pretty flowers – but their role is to thrive rather than look decorative. Once established, you can turn them under, cut them for compost, or let them decompose for earthworms to incorporate. Their work happens below the surface.
Now is the ideal time for sowing these cold-season plants. I’ve chosen rye grass, great for clay soil, a nitrogen-lifter, vetch, and field beans.
It feels rewarding in sowing something knowing it’s temporary – on the surface, anyway.
