🔗 Share this article Want to give your soil some TLC? Plant green manure 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 commented, “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; coming back from a trip, I spotted a sunflower sprouting in the back corner. This week, though, some necessary firefighting is underway. Being six months pregnant, I’ve hired a professional gardener to tackle troublesome weeds 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 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 play a key role in seasonal planting for edible gardens. 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 modest and consistent – and enhancing soil health 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 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 vigorous crops, you can control weeds, attract pollinators, host pest-eating creatures, and enrich the soil with nutrients. Green manure plants aren’t always showy – though some, like lupins ‘Blue Sonet’ and a flowering legume, have pretty flowers – but their role is to grow vigorously rather than be admired. Once established, you can turn them under, cut them for compost, or leave them on the surface for worms to pull down. The real magic happens underground. Autumn is perfect for sowing these overwintering crops. My selection includes rye grass, great for clay soil, Italian ryegrass, a weed-suppressor, and field beans. There’s satisfaction in sowing something knowing it’s temporary – on the surface, anyway.