Want to give your soil some TLC? Sow green manure in your garden and you’ll improve your yields.

Just the other day, I discovered a half-empty 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.

In short, 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 sprouting in the back corner.

Now, however, some necessary firefighting is underway. Being six months pregnant, I’ve enlisted a local 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 cover crops.

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

My gardening friend Claire has written about cover crops, as they are essential in crop rotation for vegetable plots. 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 enhancing soil health 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.

Green manure are like superheroes for your garden’s foundation. Soil likes to be covered, 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.

Cover crops may not look exciting – though some, like lupins ‘Blue Sonet’ and bird’s foot trefoil, have lovely blooms – but their purpose is to grow vigorously rather than look decorative. Once established, you can dig them into the soil, chop them for mulch, or let them decompose for earthworms to pull down. Their work happens underground.

Now is the ideal time for sowing these cold-season plants. I’ve chosen rye grass, great for clay soil, a nitrogen-lifter, a weed-suppressor, and field beans.

There’s satisfaction in planting seeds that won’t stay forever – on the surface, anyway.