New starter,needing help please.

[goofter1314]

Hi folks,i am very new to gardening only really started this year,after moving back into my mum and dad's old house. Any help with the questions here would be much appreciated.The garden is very small,only really a border at the back of the house and a couple out front with a small lawn. We did have a veg garden but the soil here is clay and very heavy. Therefore my dad concreted it and as i said earlier i only have a border round the fence now. I have been digging this since middle of feb and each time adding soil conditioner and manure, will this help with drainage? it is still quite heavy but at least i can now stick my fork in without using my foot. When it rains the concrete runs the wrong way so all the water seems to run into the border making it quite wet. Any solutions for this please?
At the front of the house is the lawn and a small border running along the front of the house, the soil here is certainly not as heavy as the back of the house and i grew with some success last year Dahlias. The grass is very tired looking and not nice at all, again any tips?
I have another border (approx 3metres X 1 1/2metres) also the soil here is pretty light and i do have a couple of plants in at the moment. The biggest question for this border is we sit right on the shore and it can get a little breezy, i would love to put some red hot pokers and lupins in this border would this be a problem with wind and things. Would they be ok with stakes?
Sorry for being a bit thick but it would be nice to get things up and running.Thanks.

[SarzWix]

Welcome to the Vine
You're doing the right thing adding muck & soil conditioner to your clay, adding grit will also help a lot. I'm not sure what the solution to the concrete run off is, maybe raise your beds a bit?

[selfraising]

Hello and welcome to the vine! I was going to suggest raising the beds as well.

[Mchanen]

Hi Goofter, Since most of the garden is concrete maybe you could plant some herbs, veg and flowers in pots and baskets- it will make it look much prettier as well instead of there just being concrete!

[Topcat36]

welcome, you'll find tons of advice on here and will soon find yourself addicted. Think i would build some raised beds, and lots of containers ,amazing what you can grow in containers.