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I recently found a partially finished bottle of Lucozade placed in the euphorbia trough by one of the scaffolders. An architect friend commented, “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; after returning from holiday, I spotted a sunflower sprouting in the back corner.

This week, though, some necessary firefighting is underway. As I’m expecting a baby, I’ve enlisted a local gardener to remove troublesome weeds like a prickly weed and robinia saplings from the neighbour’s tree, while leaving the good stuff. Next, in the open patches, I’ll be sowing green manure.

Cover crops act like heroes when it comes to boosting soil quality.

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 ambitions for the garden are simple and steady – and improving the soil is my main priority. To update concerned readers, the scaffold is for roof repairs, and the fences are still wobbly, but the neighbours are on board with replacing them.

Green manure work wonders for soil health. Soil likes to be covered, which is why weeds appear. Yet by sowing vigorous crops, you can suppress weeds, attract pollinators, host pest-eating creatures, and fix nitrogen.

Cover crops aren’t always showy – though some, like certain lupin varieties and bird’s foot trefoil, have pretty flowers – but their role is to thrive rather than look decorative. After they’ve grown, you can turn them under, chop them for mulch, or leave them on the surface for worms to pull down. Their work happens underground.

Now is the ideal time for sowing these overwintering crops. My selection includes forage rye, great for clay soil, Italian ryegrass, vetch, and beans that aerate soil.

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