Does your garden soil need a boost? Sow green manure in your garden and you’ll enrich your soil.
I recently found 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 in disarray. Sometimes neglect has its perks; after returning from holiday, I spotted a sunflower sprouting in the back corner.
This week, though, some urgent tidying is underway. Being six months pregnant, I’ve hired a professional gardener to tackle troublesome weeds like a prickly weed and young tree shoots 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 improving soil health.
A fellow garden writer has previously discussed cover crops, as they play a key role in crop rotation for vegetable plots. However, the only things I’m picking from my garden right now are a few scrumped apples and some woody herbs.
My garden goals are simple and steady – and improving the soil is top of the list. To update concerned readers, the scaffold is for roof repairs, and the garden boundaries are yet to be fixed, but the neighbours are on board with replacing them.
Green manure work wonders for soil health. Soil likes to be covered, which is why unwanted plants pop up. But by sowing fast-growing plants, you can suppress weeds, attract pollinators, shelter beneficial insects, 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 purpose is to thrive rather than look decorative. Once established, you can turn them under, chop them for mulch, or leave them on the surface for earthworms to pull down. The real magic happens underground.
Now is the ideal time for sowing these cold-season plants. My selection includes forage rye, which breaks up heavy earth, a nitrogen-lifter, a weed-suppressor, and field beans.
There’s satisfaction in sowing something knowing it’s temporary – on the surface, anyway.
