Does your garden soil need a boost? Plant green manure in your garden and you’ll enrich your soil.
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.
All this is to say, the garden is a bit of a mess. But there’s a lot to be said for negligence; after returning from holiday, I spotted a sunflower growing in the back corner.
Now, however, some necessary firefighting is underway. Being six months pregnant, I’ve hired a local gardener to tackle troublesome weeds like a prickly weed and robinia saplings from the neighbour’s tree, but keeping desirable plants. Next, in the newly cleared 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. But, the only things I’m harvesting 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 my main priority. For those wondering, the scaffolding is for roof repairs, and the fences are still wobbly, but the neighbours are on board with the plan.
Cover crops 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 fix nitrogen.
Green manure plants 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. 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. The real magic happens underground.
Autumn is perfect for sowing these cold-season plants. My selection includes forage rye, great for clay soil, Italian ryegrass, vetch, and field beans.
There’s satisfaction in sowing something that won’t stay forever – on the surface, anyway.
