🔗 Share this article Soil in need of some love? Plant cover crops in your garden and you’ll reap the benefits. Just the other day, I discovered 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?” which made me see it differently. In short, the garden is a bit of a mess. But there’s a lot to be said for negligence; after returning from holiday, I spotted a sunflower sprouting in the back corner. Now, however, some urgent tidying is underway. Being six months pregnant, I’ve enlisted a professional gardener to remove invasive plants like a prickly weed and robinia saplings from the neighbour’s tree, but keeping desirable plants. Then, in the open patches, I’ll be sowing green manure. Cover crops act like heroes when it comes to improving soil health. A fellow garden writer has written about cover crops, as they play a key role in seasonal planting for vegetable plots. However, 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 top of the list. For those wondering, the scaffold is for roof repairs, and the fences are yet to be fixed, but the neighbours are on board with the plan. Green manure are like superheroes for soil health. Bare soil invites weeds, which is why unwanted plants pop up. Yet by sowing vigorous crops, you can control weeds, bring in bees, host pest-eating creatures, and fix nitrogen. Green manure plants may not look exciting – though some, like certain lupin varieties and bird’s foot trefoil, have lovely blooms – but their role is to grow vigorously rather than look decorative. After they’ve grown, you can turn them under, chop them for mulch, or leave them on the surface for earthworms to incorporate. Their work happens below the surface. 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 planting seeds that won’t stay forever – on the surface, anyway.