🔗 Share this article Does your garden soil need a boost? Sow cover crops in your garden and you’ll reap the benefits. Just the other day, I discovered a partially finished bottle of an energy drink 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 a bit of a mess. 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 remove troublesome weeds like a prickly weed and robinia saplings from the neighbour’s tree, while leaving the good stuff. Then, in the open patches, I’ll be sowing green manure. Green manure are superheroes when it comes to improving soil health. My gardening friend Claire has written about cover crops, as they play a key role in seasonal planting for edible gardens. But, 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. 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. Cover crops work wonders for soil health. Soil likes to be covered, which is why weeds appear. But by sowing vigorous crops, you can suppress weeds, attract pollinators, host pest-eating creatures, and fix nitrogen. Cover crops may not look exciting – though some, like certain lupin varieties and bird’s foot trefoil, have pretty flowers – but their purpose is to grow vigorously rather than look decorative. Once established, you can turn them under, cut them for compost, or let them decompose for earthworms to pull down. The real magic happens below the surface. Now is the ideal time for sowing these overwintering crops. My selection includes rye grass, which breaks up heavy earth, Italian ryegrass, a weed-suppressor, and field beans. There’s satisfaction in planting seeds knowing it’s temporary – on the surface, anyway.