🔗 Share this article Does your garden soil need a boost? Plant green manure in your garden and you’ll enrich your soil. Just the other day, I discovered a half-empty bottle of an energy drink placed in the euphorbia trough by one of the scaffolders. A visiting architect commented, “Are you sure that’s Lucozade?” giving me a new perspective. In short, 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. Being six months pregnant, I’ve enlisted a local gardener to remove troublesome weeds like green alkanet and robinia saplings from the neighbour’s tree, but keeping desirable plants. Next, in the newly cleared patches, I’ll be sowing cover crops. Green manure are superheroes when it comes to boosting soil quality. My gardening friend Claire has written about green manure, as they play a key role in seasonal planting for edible gardens. But, the only things I’m picking from my garden right now are a few foraged apples and some woody herbs. My ambitions for the garden are simple and steady – and enhancing soil health is top of the list. For those wondering, the scaffold is for roof repairs, and the garden boundaries are still wobbly, but the neighbours are on board with replacing them. Cover crops work wonders for your garden’s foundation. Soil likes to be covered, which is why unwanted plants pop up. Yet by sowing fast-growing plants, you can suppress weeds, bring in bees, shelter beneficial insects, and fix nitrogen. Green manure plants may not look exciting – though some, like lupins ‘Blue Sonet’ and bird’s foot trefoil, have lovely blooms – but their role is to grow vigorously rather than be admired. After they’ve grown, you can turn them under, cut them for compost, 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 cold-season plants. My selection includes forage rye, which breaks up heavy earth, Italian ryegrass, a weed-suppressor, and beans that aerate soil. There’s satisfaction in sowing something that won’t stay forever – at least above ground.