Does your garden soil need a boost? Sow green manure in your garden and you’ll enrich your soil.

I recently found a half-empty bottle of Lucozade left behind in the euphorbia trough by one of the scaffolders. An architect friend 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 urgent tidying is underway. As I’m expecting a baby, I’ve enlisted a local gardener to remove invasive plants like a prickly weed and robinia saplings from the neighbour’s tree, but keeping desirable plants. Then, in the newly cleared patches, I’ll be sowing green manure.

Cover crops act like heroes 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. However, the only things I’m picking from my garden right now are a few foraged apples and some hardy herbs.

My ambitions for the garden are simple and steady – and improving the soil is my main priority. To update concerned readers, the scaffolding is for roof repairs, and the garden boundaries are yet to be fixed, but the neighbours agree with replacing them.

Cover crops are like superheroes for your garden’s foundation. Bare soil invites weeds, which is why unwanted plants pop up. But by sowing fast-growing plants, you can suppress weeds, attract pollinators, shelter beneficial insects, and fix nitrogen.

Cover crops aren’t always showy – though some, like certain lupin varieties and a flowering legume, have pretty flowers – but their role is to thrive rather than be admired. After they’ve grown, you can turn them under, cut them for compost, or leave them on the surface for worms to incorporate. Their work happens underground.

Autumn is perfect for sowing these overwintering crops. My selection includes rye grass, which breaks up heavy earth, a nitrogen-lifter, a weed-suppressor, and field beans.

It feels rewarding in sowing something knowing it’s temporary – on the surface, anyway.