Want to give your soil some TLC? Sow green manure in your garden and you’ll reap the benefits.
Just the other day, I discovered a half-empty bottle of Lucozade 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 sprouting in the back corner.
This week, though, some necessary firefighting is underway. As I’m expecting a baby, I’ve hired a professional gardener to tackle invasive plants like a prickly weed and robinia saplings from the neighbour’s tree, but keeping desirable plants. Next, in the open patches, I’ll be sowing green manure.
Green manure are superheroes when it comes to boosting soil quality.
A fellow garden writer has written about cover crops, as they are essential in seasonal planting for edible gardens. 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. For those wondering, the scaffolding is for roof repairs, and the fences are yet to be fixed, but the neighbours are on board with the plan.
Cover crops are like superheroes for soil health. Soil likes to be covered, which is why unwanted plants pop up. Yet by sowing vigorous crops, you can suppress weeds, bring in bees, host pest-eating creatures, 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 role is to grow vigorously rather than be admired. After they’ve grown, you can turn them under, chop them for mulch, or leave them on the surface for earthworms to incorporate. The real magic happens underground.
Now is the ideal time for sowing these overwintering crops. I’ve chosen forage rye, great for clay soil, a nitrogen-lifter, vetch, and field beans.
It feels rewarding in planting seeds that won’t stay forever – on the surface, anyway.