🔗 Share this article Does your garden soil need a boost? Plant cover crops in your garden and you’ll improve your yields. I recently found a half-empty bottle of an energy drink placed in the euphorbia trough by one of the scaffolders. A visiting architect joked, “Are you sure that’s Lucozade?” which made me see it differently. In short, the garden is in disarray. 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 hired a professional gardener to remove invasive plants like green alkanet and young tree shoots from the neighbour’s tree, but keeping desirable plants. Next, in the open patches, I’ll be sowing cover crops. Green manure are superheroes when it comes to improving soil health. My gardening friend Claire has written about green manure, as they are essential in seasonal planting for edible gardens. However, the only things I’m harvesting from my garden right now are a few scrumped apples and some woody herbs. My ambitions for the garden are simple and steady – and enhancing soil health is my main priority. For those wondering, the scaffolding is for roof repairs, and the garden boundaries are yet to be fixed, but the neighbours are on board with the plan. Green manure are like superheroes for your garden’s foundation. Bare soil invites weeds, which is why weeds appear. But by sowing vigorous crops, you can suppress weeds, attract pollinators, host pest-eating creatures, and fix nitrogen. Cover crops aren’t always showy – though some, like certain lupin varieties and a flowering legume, have lovely blooms – but their purpose is to grow vigorously rather than look decorative. Once established, you can turn them under, cut them for compost, or leave them on the surface for earthworms to pull down. Their work happens underground. Now is the ideal time for sowing these cold-season plants. My selection includes forage rye, great for clay soil, Italian ryegrass, vetch, and beans that aerate soil. There’s satisfaction in sowing something that won’t stay forever – on the surface, anyway.