Just starting out...

[Katie&Seb]

When you're thinking what to plant where, the type of soil that plants prefer might help; carrots and parsnips will like loose, stone-free soil, so would be happy in the sieved soil in a raised bed. Onions can go in the same bed as carrots, or have a bed of their own along with garlic, leeks, spring onions. Don't fertilize the carrot bed though, they grow better without.

Cabbages, broccoli, sprouts, kale etc like firm ground, so you can start those in pots/trays at home and plant them later into an undug patch covered with cardboard &/or plastic. Potatoes, pumpkins, squash like plenty of food but also are okay to put in where you haven't dug yet, as long as you feed them well.

Salads are good to just slot in wherever you have a gap, unless you want to dedicate a whole patch to them. Oh, and also, carrots will need a cover of fleece or insect netting to protect them from root fly and the cabbages etc will need netting to keep the butterflies off.

Hope this all makes some sense

Thanks Sarah, some great advice which we will definitely follow up on!

[Two_Sheds]

Straw is dried grass stalks.


I've never seen couch grass become "dried stalks", but I guess it's possible. You need to dig it all out, of course, every last scrap.

[Katie&Seb]

Your beige thatch could be anything really, but couch doesn't turn to straw

Look for "perennial", that's the gardening term for permanent

Fertiliser is fertiliser (plant food). Manure isn't a food, it's a soil improver: it adds humus to the soil, improving drainage, structure & water absorption.

Sorry, I think I mislead you, it's not straw, just looks a bit like it! What we have is definitely what is in your picture.

Thanks for your advice.

K&S