Does your garden soil need a boost? Sow green manure in your garden and you’ll reap the benefits.
Just the other day, I discovered a partially finished bottle of Lucozade left behind 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. But there’s a lot to be said for negligence; coming back from a trip, I spotted a sunflower sprouting in the back corner.
This week, though, some urgent tidying is underway. Being six months pregnant, I’ve enlisted a local gardener to remove invasive plants like green alkanet and robinia saplings 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 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 scrumped 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 scaffolding is for roof repairs, and the fences are yet to be fixed, but the neighbours are on board with replacing them.
Green manure are like superheroes for your garden’s foundation. Bare soil invites weeds, which is why weeds appear. But by sowing fast-growing plants, you can suppress weeds, bring in bees, host pest-eating creatures, and enrich the soil with nutrients.
Cover crops aren’t always showy – though some, like certain lupin varieties and a flowering legume, have pretty flowers – but their role is to thrive rather than look decorative. Once established, you can dig them into the soil, chop them for mulch, or let them decompose for worms to incorporate. Their work happens underground.
Autumn is perfect for sowing these cold-season plants. I’ve chosen rye grass, great for clay soil, Italian ryegrass, vetch, and beans that aerate soil.
It feels rewarding in sowing something knowing it’s temporary – on the surface, anyway.