🔗 Share this article Does your garden soil need a boost? Plant green manure in your garden and you’ll enrich your soil. I recently found a half-empty bottle of Lucozade left behind in the euphorbia trough by one of the scaffolders. An architect friend joked, “Are you sure that’s Lucozade?” giving me a new perspective. All this is to say, the garden is in disarray. But there’s a lot to be said for negligence; after returning from holiday, I spotted a sunflower sprouting in the back corner. Now, however, some urgent tidying is underway. As I’m expecting a baby, 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. Next, in the newly cleared patches, I’ll be sowing green manure. Cover crops act like heroes when it comes to boosting soil quality. A fellow garden writer has written about green manure, as they are essential in seasonal planting for edible gardens. But, the only things I’m picking from my garden right now are a few scrumped apples and some hardy herbs. My ambitions for the garden are modest and consistent – and enhancing soil health is my main priority. For those wondering, the scaffold is for roof repairs, and the fences are yet to be fixed, but the neighbours are on board with replacing them. Cover crops are like superheroes for soil health. Soil likes to be covered, which is why weeds appear. Yet by sowing vigorous crops, you can control weeds, bring in bees, shelter beneficial insects, and fix nitrogen. Cover crops may not look exciting – though some, like certain lupin varieties and bird’s foot trefoil, have lovely blooms – but their role is to grow vigorously rather than be admired. Once established, 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. Now is the ideal time for sowing these overwintering crops. I’ve chosen forage rye, great for clay soil, Italian ryegrass, a weed-suppressor, and beans that aerate soil. There’s satisfaction in sowing something knowing it’s temporary – on the surface, anyway.