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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?” giving me a new perspective.

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

This week, though, some urgent tidying is underway. As I’m expecting a baby, I’ve hired a professional gardener to remove invasive plants like green alkanet and young tree shoots from the neighbour’s tree, while leaving the good stuff. Next, in the open 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 cover crops, as they play a key role in crop rotation for edible gardens. But, the only things I’m harvesting from my garden right now are a few scrumped apples and some hardy herbs.

My ambitions for the garden are simple and steady – and improving the soil 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 agree with the plan.

Green manure are like superheroes for your garden’s foundation. Bare soil invites weeds, which is why weeds appear. But by sowing fast-growing plants, you can control weeds, bring in bees, host pest-eating creatures, and fix nitrogen.

Green manure plants aren’t always showy – though some, like certain lupin varieties and a flowering legume, have lovely blooms – but their role is to thrive rather than be admired. After they’ve grown, you can turn them under, cut them for compost, or let them decompose for worms to incorporate. Their work happens underground.

Now is the ideal time for sowing these overwintering crops. I’ve chosen forage rye, great for clay soil, Italian ryegrass, a weed-suppressor, and field beans.

It feels rewarding in planting seeds that won’t stay forever – at least above ground.