🔗 Share this article Soil in need of some love? Sow green manure in your garden and you’ll improve your yields. Just the other day, I discovered a partially finished bottle of an energy drink 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 a bit of a mess. Sometimes neglect has its perks; after returning from holiday, I spotted a sunflower growing in the back corner. Now, however, some necessary firefighting is underway. As I’m expecting a baby, I’ve enlisted 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 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 previously discussed green manure, as they play a key role in seasonal planting for vegetable plots. But, 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 my main priority. To update concerned readers, the scaffolding is for roof repairs, and the garden boundaries are yet to be fixed, but the neighbours are on board with replacing them. Green manure are like superheroes for your garden’s foundation. Bare soil invites weeds, which is why unwanted plants pop up. Yet by sowing fast-growing plants, you can suppress weeds, attract pollinators, shelter beneficial insects, and fix nitrogen. Cover crops may not look exciting – though some, like lupins ‘Blue Sonet’ and a flowering legume, have lovely blooms – but their purpose is to thrive rather than look decorative. Once established, you can turn them under, chop them for mulch, or let them decompose for earthworms to pull down. Their work happens below the surface. Autumn is perfect for sowing these cold-season plants. My selection includes rye grass, great for clay soil, Italian ryegrass, vetch, and beans that aerate soil. There’s satisfaction in planting seeds that won’t stay forever – on the surface, anyway.