🔗 Share this article Soil in need of some love? Plant green manure in your garden and you’ll reap the benefits. I recently found a half-empty bottle of an energy drink placed 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 growing in the back corner. This week, though, some necessary firefighting is underway. Being six months pregnant, I’ve hired a professional gardener to remove invasive plants like green alkanet and robinia saplings from the neighbour’s tree, while leaving the good stuff. Then, in the open patches, I’ll be sowing cover crops. Green manure are superheroes when it comes to boosting soil quality. My gardening friend Claire has previously discussed green manure, as they play a key role in crop rotation for edible gardens. However, the only things I’m harvesting from my garden right now are a few foraged apples and some woody herbs. My garden goals are simple and steady – and enhancing soil health is top of the list. To update concerned readers, the scaffold is for roof repairs, and the garden boundaries are still wobbly, 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. But by sowing fast-growing plants, you can suppress weeds, attract pollinators, host pest-eating creatures, and enrich the soil with nutrients. Green manure plants may not look exciting – though some, like lupins ‘Blue Sonet’ and a flowering legume, have lovely blooms – but their role is to thrive rather than look decorative. After they’ve grown, you can dig them into the soil, chop them for mulch, or let them decompose for worms to incorporate. Their work happens underground. Now is the ideal time for sowing these overwintering crops. I’ve chosen forage rye, which breaks up heavy earth, Italian ryegrass, vetch, and beans that aerate soil. It feels rewarding in sowing something knowing it’s temporary – on the surface, anyway.