A green manure crop is really just anything you grow for a short while and then slash or dig into your soil before it gets a chance to set seed or fruit.

Why would you do that? Lots of reasons! It helps by:

increasing organic matter in your soil (increasing nutrient content, aeration and water retention) adding nitrogen [...]

When we did our house extensions about 5 years ago, we didn’t really do much with the front yard. We always meant to come back to it someday, but never quite got around to it. We never bothered to plant much in the way of trees and shrubs either, since we didn’t want them to [...]