Does your garden soil need a boost? Plant green manure in your garden and you’ll reap the benefits.

Just the other day, I discovered a partially finished bottle of Lucozade placed 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 a bit of a mess. But there’s a lot to be said for negligence; after returning from holiday, I spotted a sunflower growing in the back corner.

This week, though, some urgent tidying is underway. Being six months pregnant, 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 green manure.

Green manure are superheroes when it comes to improving soil health.

A fellow garden writer has written about cover crops, as they are essential in seasonal planting for vegetable plots. However, the only things I’m picking from my garden right now are a few foraged apples and some hardy herbs.

My garden goals are simple and steady – and improving the soil is top of the list. To update concerned readers, the scaffold is for roof repairs, and the garden boundaries are still wobbly, but the neighbours are on board with the plan.

Cover crops work wonders for your garden’s foundation. Bare soil invites weeds, which is why weeds appear. But by sowing vigorous crops, you can suppress weeds, bring in bees, host pest-eating creatures, and fix nitrogen.

Green manure plants may not look exciting – 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 dig them into the soil, chop them for mulch, or leave them on the surface for earthworms to pull down. The real magic happens below the surface.

Now is the ideal time for sowing these cold-season plants. My selection includes forage rye, which breaks up heavy earth, Italian ryegrass, a weed-suppressor, and field beans.

It feels rewarding in planting seeds knowing it’s temporary – at least above ground.