🔗 Share this article Want to give your soil some TLC? Sow cover crops 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 commented, “Are you sure that’s Lucozade?” giving me a new perspective. All this is to say, the garden is in disarray. Sometimes neglect has its perks; after returning from holiday, I spotted a sunflower growing in the back corner. Now, however, some urgent tidying is underway. Being six months pregnant, I’ve enlisted a local gardener to tackle invasive plants like a prickly weed and robinia saplings from the neighbour’s tree, while leaving the good stuff. Next, in the newly cleared patches, I’ll be sowing cover crops. Cover crops act like heroes when it comes to improving soil health. A fellow garden writer has previously discussed green manure, as they play a key role in crop rotation for edible gardens. However, the only things I’m harvesting from my garden right now are a few scrumped apples and some woody herbs. My garden goals are modest and consistent – and improving the soil is top of the list. To update concerned readers, the scaffold is for roof repairs, and the garden boundaries are yet to be fixed, but the neighbours agree with replacing them. Cover crops work wonders for soil health. Bare soil invites weeds, which is why weeds appear. But by sowing vigorous crops, you can suppress weeds, attract pollinators, shelter beneficial insects, and fix nitrogen. Cover crops may not look exciting – though some, like lupins ‘Blue Sonet’ and a flowering legume, have pretty flowers – but their role is to grow vigorously rather than be admired. After they’ve grown, you can turn them under, chop them for mulch, or let them decompose for worms to incorporate. The real magic happens below the surface. Now is the ideal time for sowing these cold-season plants. I’ve chosen rye grass, great for clay soil, a nitrogen-lifter, vetch, and beans that aerate soil. There’s satisfaction in sowing something that won’t stay forever – at least above ground.