I recently found a half-empty bottle of Lucozade placed 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 in disarray. But there’s a lot to be said for negligence; coming back from a trip, I spotted a sunflower sprouting in the back corner.
Now, however, some necessary firefighting is underway. Being six months pregnant, I’ve enlisted a local gardener to tackle invasive plants like green alkanet and young tree shoots from the neighbour’s tree, but keeping desirable plants. Then, in the newly cleared patches, I’ll be sowing green manure.
Cover crops act like heroes when it comes to improving soil health.
A fellow garden writer has written about cover crops, as they are essential in crop rotation for vegetable plots. 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. To update concerned readers, 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 soil health. Soil likes to be covered, which is why unwanted plants pop up. But by sowing vigorous crops, you can suppress weeds, attract pollinators, host pest-eating creatures, and fix nitrogen.
Cover crops may not look exciting – though some, like certain lupin varieties and a flowering legume, have pretty flowers – but their role is to grow vigorously rather than look decorative. Once established, you can turn them under, cut them for compost, or let them decompose for earthworms to pull down. The real magic happens underground.
Autumn is perfect for sowing these cold-season plants. I’ve chosen forage rye, great for clay soil, a nitrogen-lifter, a weed-suppressor, and beans that aerate soil.
It feels rewarding in planting seeds knowing it’s temporary – on the surface, anyway.
