🔗 Share this article Want to give your soil some TLC? Plant green manure in your garden and you’ll improve your yields. Just the other day, I discovered a half-empty bottle of an energy drink left behind in the euphorbia trough by one of the scaffolders. An architect friend joked, “Are you sure that’s Lucozade?” giving me a new perspective. In short, the garden is in disarray. Sometimes neglect has its perks; after returning from holiday, I spotted a sunflower sprouting in the back corner. This week, though, some urgent tidying is underway. Being six months pregnant, I’ve hired a professional gardener to remove invasive plants like green alkanet and robinia saplings from the neighbour’s tree, while leaving the good stuff. Next, in the newly cleared patches, I’ll be sowing green manure. Green manure are superheroes when it comes to improving soil health. My gardening friend Claire has previously discussed green manure, as they play a key role in crop rotation for vegetable plots. But, the only things I’m harvesting from my garden right now are a few foraged apples and some hardy herbs. My ambitions for the garden are modest and consistent – and improving the soil is my main priority. For those wondering, the scaffolding is for roof repairs, and the garden boundaries are still wobbly, but the neighbours agree with replacing them. Green manure work wonders for your garden’s foundation. Bare soil invites weeds, which is why unwanted plants pop up. Yet by sowing fast-growing plants, you can suppress weeds, bring in bees, host pest-eating creatures, and enrich the soil with nutrients. Green manure plants aren’t always showy – though some, like lupins ‘Blue Sonet’ and bird’s foot trefoil, have pretty flowers – but their role is to grow vigorously rather than be admired. Once established, you can dig them into the soil, cut them for compost, or leave them on the surface for earthworms to pull down. The real magic happens underground. Autumn is perfect for sowing these overwintering crops. My selection includes forage rye, which breaks up heavy earth, Italian ryegrass, a weed-suppressor, and beans that aerate soil. It feels rewarding in sowing something knowing it’s temporary – on the surface, anyway.