Want to give your soil some TLC? Plant 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. An architect friend joked, “Are you sure that’s Lucozade?” which made me see it differently.
In short, the garden is in disarray. Sometimes neglect has its perks; coming back from a trip, I spotted a sunflower sprouting in the back corner.
This week, though, some urgent tidying is underway. As I’m expecting a baby, 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 boosting soil quality.
A fellow garden writer has previously discussed cover crops, as they play a key role in crop rotation for edible gardens. 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. For those wondering, the scaffolding is for roof repairs, and the garden boundaries are yet to be fixed, but the neighbours agree with the plan.
Cover crops work wonders for your garden’s foundation. Bare soil invites weeds, which is why unwanted plants pop up. Yet by sowing vigorous crops, you can suppress weeds, attract pollinators, host pest-eating creatures, and fix nitrogen.
Green manure plants aren’t always showy – though some, like certain lupin varieties and bird’s foot trefoil, have lovely blooms – but their role is to thrive rather than look decorative. Once established, you can turn them under, cut them for compost, or let them decompose for earthworms to pull down. Their work happens below the surface.
Autumn is perfect for sowing these cold-season plants. I’ve chosen forage rye, which breaks up heavy earth, a nitrogen-lifter, a weed-suppressor, and field beans.
There’s satisfaction in sowing something that won’t stay forever – at least above ground.