🔗 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 partially finished bottle of Lucozade left behind in the euphorbia trough by one of the scaffolders. A visiting architect 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; coming back from a trip, I spotted a sunflower growing in the back corner. Now, however, some urgent tidying is underway. Being six months pregnant, I’ve hired a professional gardener to tackle invasive plants like green alkanet and robinia saplings from the neighbour’s tree, but keeping desirable plants. Then, in the newly cleared patches, I’ll be sowing cover crops. Cover crops act like heroes when it comes to boosting soil quality. A fellow garden writer has previously discussed green manure, as they are essential 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 enhancing soil health is my main priority. To update concerned readers, the scaffold is for roof repairs, and the fences are still wobbly, but the neighbours agree with replacing them. Cover crops are like superheroes for soil health. Soil likes to be covered, which is why unwanted plants pop up. But by sowing fast-growing plants, you can control weeds, attract pollinators, shelter beneficial insects, and enrich the soil with nutrients. Cover crops 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. After they’ve grown, you can dig them into the soil, cut them for compost, or let them decompose for worms to incorporate. Their work happens underground. Now is the ideal time for sowing these cold-season plants. I’ve chosen rye grass, great for clay soil, Italian ryegrass, a weed-suppressor, and field beans. There’s satisfaction in sowing something that won’t stay forever – on the surface, anyway.