🔗 Share this article Soil in need of some love? Plant cover crops in your garden and you’ll enrich your soil. 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?” which made me see it differently. All this is to say, the garden is in disarray. But there’s a lot to be said for negligence; coming back from a trip, I spotted a sunflower sprouting in the back corner. Now, however, some urgent tidying is underway. As I’m expecting a baby, I’ve hired a local gardener to tackle invasive plants like green alkanet and robinia saplings from the neighbour’s tree, but keeping desirable plants. Then, in the newly cleared patches, I’ll be sowing cover crops. Green manure are superheroes when it comes to improving soil health. My gardening friend Claire has previously discussed green manure, as they play a key role in crop rotation for vegetable plots. But, 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 top of the list. To update concerned readers, the scaffolding 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 weeds appear. Yet by sowing fast-growing plants, you can suppress weeds, attract pollinators, shelter beneficial insects, and enrich the soil with nutrients. Cover crops aren’t always showy – though some, like certain lupin varieties and a flowering legume, 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 let them decompose for earthworms to pull down. Their work happens underground. Autumn is perfect for sowing these overwintering crops. My selection includes forage rye, which breaks up heavy earth, Italian ryegrass, vetch, and field beans. It feels rewarding in sowing something knowing it’s temporary – on the surface, anyway.