I recently found a half-empty bottle of Lucozade left behind in the euphorbia trough by one of the scaffolders. A visiting architect joked, “Are you sure that’s Lucozade?” which made me see it differently.
All this is to say, the garden is in disarray. Sometimes neglect has its perks; after returning from holiday, I spotted a sunflower growing 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 a prickly weed and robinia saplings from the neighbour’s tree, but keeping desirable plants. Then, in the open patches, I’ll be sowing cover crops.
Cover crops act like heroes when it comes to boosting soil quality.
A fellow garden writer has written about cover crops, as they play a key role in crop rotation for vegetable plots. But, 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 improving the soil is top of the list. To update concerned readers, the scaffolding is for roof repairs, and the garden boundaries are still wobbly, but the neighbours agree with replacing them.
Cover crops are like superheroes for soil health. Bare soil invites weeds, 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 pretty flowers – but their purpose is to grow vigorously rather than be admired. Once established, you can turn them under, chop them for mulch, or let them decompose for earthworms to incorporate. The real magic happens underground.
Now is the ideal time for sowing these overwintering crops. I’ve chosen rye grass, which breaks up heavy earth, a nitrogen-lifter, vetch, and beans that aerate soil.
It feels rewarding in sowing something knowing it’s temporary – on the surface, anyway.
