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

Just the other day, I discovered a half-empty bottle of an energy drink 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.

In short, the garden is in disarray. Sometimes neglect has its perks; coming back from a trip, I spotted a sunflower growing in the back corner.

This week, though, some necessary firefighting is underway. As I’m expecting a baby, I’ve enlisted a professional gardener to tackle invasive plants like a prickly weed and young tree shoots from the neighbour’s tree, while leaving the good stuff. Then, in the newly cleared patches, I’ll be sowing cover crops.

Cover crops act like heroes when it comes to improving soil health.

My gardening friend Claire has written about green manure, as they play a key role in crop rotation for edible gardens. However, the only things I’m picking from my garden right now are a few scrumped apples and some hardy herbs.

My ambitions for the garden 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 yet to be fixed, but the neighbours agree with replacing them.

Green manure are like superheroes for your garden’s foundation. Bare soil invites weeds, which is why unwanted plants pop up. 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 certain lupin varieties and a flowering legume, have lovely blooms – but their purpose is to thrive rather than look decorative. After they’ve grown, you can turn them under, chop them for mulch, or let them decompose for worms to incorporate. Their work happens below the surface.

Autumn is perfect for sowing these cold-season plants. My selection includes rye grass, which breaks up heavy earth, Italian ryegrass, a weed-suppressor, and beans that aerate soil.

There’s satisfaction in planting seeds knowing it’s temporary – at least above ground.