Does your garden soil need a boost? Sow cover crops in your garden and you’ll enrich your soil.
Just the other day, I discovered a half-empty bottle of an energy drink placed in the euphorbia trough by one of the scaffolders. A visiting architect joked, “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 sprouting in the back corner.
Now, however, some urgent tidying is underway. Being six months pregnant, 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 open patches, I’ll be sowing green manure.
Green manure are superheroes when it comes to boosting soil quality.
My gardening friend Claire has written about cover crops, as they play a key role in seasonal planting for vegetable plots. However, the only things I’m harvesting from my garden right now are a few scrumped apples and some hardy herbs.
My garden goals are simple and steady – and enhancing soil health is my main priority. For those wondering, the scaffold is for roof repairs, and the garden boundaries are still wobbly, but the neighbours agree with replacing them.
Cover crops work wonders for your garden’s foundation. Bare soil invites weeds, which is why unwanted plants pop up. But by sowing fast-growing plants, you can control weeds, attract pollinators, 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 lovely blooms – but their role is to grow vigorously rather than be admired. Once established, you can turn them under, cut them for compost, or let them decompose for worms to pull down. The real magic happens below the surface.
Autumn is perfect for sowing these overwintering crops. I’ve chosen rye grass, great for clay soil, Italian ryegrass, vetch, and field beans.
It feels rewarding in planting seeds knowing it’s temporary – on the surface, anyway.
