Want to give your soil some TLC? Plant cover crops in your garden and you’ll enrich your soil.
I recently found a partially finished bottle of Lucozade placed 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.
In short, 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 urgent tidying is underway. Being six months pregnant, I’ve enlisted a professional 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 cover crops.
Cover crops act like heroes when it comes to improving soil health.
A fellow garden writer has written about green manure, as they are essential in seasonal planting for vegetable plots. However, the only things I’m picking 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 fences are still wobbly, but the neighbours are on board with replacing them.
Cover crops work wonders for soil health. Soil likes to be covered, which is why weeds appear. But by sowing vigorous crops, you can suppress weeds, bring in bees, shelter beneficial insects, and fix nitrogen.
Green manure plants may not look exciting – though some, like certain lupin varieties and a flowering legume, have pretty flowers – but their purpose is to grow vigorously rather than look decorative. After they’ve grown, you can dig them into the soil, chop them for mulch, or leave them on the surface for worms to pull down. The real magic happens below the surface.
Autumn is perfect for sowing these cold-season plants. My selection includes rye grass, great for clay soil, a nitrogen-lifter, vetch, and beans that aerate soil.
There’s satisfaction in planting seeds that won’t stay forever – on the surface, anyway.
