🔗 Share this article Soil in need of some love? Sow green manure in your garden and you’ll reap the benefits. I recently found a partially finished bottle of Lucozade 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. All this is to say, the garden is a bit of a mess. But there’s a lot to be said for negligence; coming back from a trip, I spotted a sunflower growing in the back corner. Now, however, some necessary firefighting is underway. As I’m expecting a baby, I’ve hired a professional gardener to remove invasive plants like a prickly weed and robinia saplings from the neighbour’s tree, while leaving the good stuff. Next, in the open patches, I’ll be sowing green manure. Green manure are superheroes when it comes to boosting soil quality. A fellow garden writer has previously discussed cover crops, as they are essential 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 garden goals are modest and consistent – and improving the soil is top of the list. To update concerned readers, the scaffolding is for roof repairs, and the garden boundaries are yet to be fixed, but the neighbours agree with the plan. Green manure work wonders for soil health. Soil likes to be covered, which is why weeds appear. Yet by sowing vigorous crops, you can suppress weeds, attract pollinators, shelter beneficial insects, and fix nitrogen. Cover crops may not look exciting – though some, like lupins ‘Blue Sonet’ and bird’s foot trefoil, have lovely blooms – but their purpose is to thrive 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 pull down. The real magic happens underground. Now is the ideal time for sowing these overwintering crops. I’ve chosen rye grass, great for clay soil, a nitrogen-lifter, a weed-suppressor, and field beans. It feels rewarding in planting seeds knowing it’s temporary – on the surface, anyway.