Newbie question: starting off this month with our new garden

[Sylvismum]

Hello gardeners. I have just joined the forum as I and my husband have just had our garden relandscaped and a new greenhouse put in. We have two largish raised beds for vegetables,filled with new soil which currently looks a bit hard and lumpy and another area of soil/ordinary bed which eventually I would like to grow fruit trees and bushes in. Bearing in mind that we are going on holiday next week, I was wondering what some of you more experienced gardeners would start to do over the next month or so, to get the raised beds off to a good start. Either to start something off straight away or to get ready for next year. We are not sure where to start! Also we are going to get a wormery. Thank you in advance for any tips you may have.

[burnie]

Welcome to the forum, it would help if we knew what you'd like to grow, for example if it's carrots, you don't add manure, just compost. Knowing roughly where you live will also help with better advice.

[nickdub]

If you want to spend some money, a good big trailer load of manure - horse or cow for preference. The soil structure will be poor now because of the soil being unworked.

Cheaper options include a load of leaves or grass-mowings and/or sowing a green manure crop now which could be dug/rotovated in later. Depends partly on what you have available nearby. Old straw bales and seaweed can be had cheaply in some places.

As for the fruit trees, good time to do some thinking and planning. Bests to decide how much space you want to devote to them and what you want to do with the ground underneath first. Some people keep poultry under their trees - I enjoy the dubious pleasure of wild deer under mine :-( In a more suburban setting smaller trees are more easy to manage, but obviously cost more for the amount of fruit they will yield .

By all means come back if you have queries about varieties or types of fruit - personally I'd always go for mostly apples and plums in the UK - but I'm notoriously lazy and prefer plants which can look after themselves :-)

[Guest]

Hi and welcome to the vine

I would look to sow radishes, winter radishes, late carrots, turnips, oriental veg, perpetual spinach, fennel, last lot of beetroots, chard, lettuce, mixed leaves in the beds.

Then I would read, watch, ask, research and plan, plan, plan.

Go on the scrounge around now is good for soft fruit cuttings, strawb runners etc. Or keeping an eye on garden centres bargain basement corners.

In Feb/ Mar you can get your bare root fruit trees and bits. You can go for supermarket bargains where there is a higher risk of 'not as described on label' or opt for your own gc or online somewhere like blackmoors. If you are feeling adventurous you could graft your own. There is plenty of help on here if you want to have a bash.

[Snadger]

Either add organic matter or green manure to both beds for next years growing or fill one bed with Spring cabbage/spring greens plants from GC and tuther with Japanese onion sets. Or you could go half and half.

[Sylvismum]

Thank you for your helpful replies!

Thank you so much for your helpful replies. I think I will probably go for the green manure in half of each of the raised beds and leave some space for some of the things that have been suggested by yourselves, to plant now.

We live in Norfolk and our plot faces East so the sun is in the back garden for a good bit of the day. We already have a young plum tree which we need to transplant, and I agree that apples and plums, and anything else I can use to make jam, will be what we will put in.

I have usually only grown runner beans which are foolproof, and have had some success with tomatoes, but I am looking forward to making better use of the plot and eventually being more self sufficient with vegetables so that means growing other things like salad, onions, greens, carrots and knowing when to put them in. Unfortunately my husband does not like courgettes, although he does not notice if I hide them in something. The flowers are supposed to be edible as well, although I notice that the ants take up residence in them!

[nickdub]

Always best to grow what you like to eat - I'm always amazed by people how seem to grow stuff because they always have, whether they like it or not. If you have room don't forget to consider some soft fruit for you new endeavors. Most types are good - if you have a spare fence or wall for example you can use it for a loganberry or a tayberry - the birds don't seem to bash them quite so hard in my garden at any rate.