🔗 Share this article Does your garden soil need a boost? Sow cover crops in your garden and you’ll enrich your soil. I recently found a partially finished bottle of Lucozade left behind in the euphorbia trough by one of the scaffolders. An architect friend commented, “Are you sure that’s Lucozade?” giving me a new perspective. 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. As I’m expecting a baby, I’ve hired a local gardener to remove invasive plants like a prickly weed 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 written about cover crops, as they are essential in seasonal planting for edible gardens. However, the only things I’m picking from my garden right now are a few foraged apples and some hardy herbs. My ambitions for the garden are simple and steady – and improving the soil 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 agree with the plan. Green manure work wonders for your garden’s foundation. Soil likes to be covered, which is why weeds appear. Yet by sowing fast-growing plants, you can suppress weeds, bring in bees, host pest-eating creatures, and enrich the soil with nutrients. Cover crops aren’t always showy – though some, like lupins ‘Blue Sonet’ and bird’s foot trefoil, have pretty flowers – but their purpose is to grow vigorously rather than be admired. 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. Autumn is perfect for sowing these overwintering crops. I’ve chosen forage rye, great for clay soil, a nitrogen-lifter, vetch, and beans that aerate soil. It feels rewarding in planting seeds that won’t stay forever – on the surface, anyway.