🔗 Share this article Does your garden soil need a boost? Plant green manure in your garden and you’ll improve your yields. I recently found a half-empty bottle of Lucozade placed in the euphorbia trough by one of the scaffolders. A visiting architect commented, “Are you sure that’s Lucozade?” which made me see it differently. In short, the garden is in disarray. 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 tackle troublesome weeds like a prickly weed and young tree shoots from the neighbour’s tree, while leaving the good stuff. Then, 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 cover crops, as they play a key role in crop rotation 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 simple and steady – and enhancing soil health is my main priority. To update concerned readers, the scaffolding is for roof repairs, and the garden boundaries are still wobbly, but the neighbours agree with the plan. Green manure are like superheroes for soil health. Soil likes to be covered, which is why unwanted plants pop up. Yet by sowing fast-growing plants, you can suppress weeds, attract pollinators, shelter beneficial insects, and enrich the soil with nutrients. Green manure plants aren’t always showy – though some, like certain lupin varieties and a flowering legume, have pretty flowers – but their purpose is to grow vigorously rather than be admired. Once established, 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. Autumn is perfect for sowing these cold-season plants. I’ve chosen forage rye, which breaks up heavy earth, Italian ryegrass, a weed-suppressor, and beans that aerate soil. It feels rewarding in sowing something that won’t stay forever – on the surface, anyway.