[Veg Plot 1B]

I too started with raised beds, and then took on another half a plot 10 x 10 m which has been set up without raised beds.

It’s good you can walk on it without all the soil sticking to your boots.

My only issue was there is a great big red ants nest in the middle of it to get rid of.

[jambop]

Is your land flat? Thinking you might find some ideas in permaculture swales to better control the water. We're on a slope here and have planted a triple band of willows at the top of a field to help absorb excess water that flows down onto us.

Quite ironic really, 200 metres above the sea and we near get flooded when there's a cloudburst. A sheet of water just sweeps down the hill.

My veg garden is on a gentle slope and is at the bottom of the entire garden, so it is natural that there would be a drain to that spot.  We like everybody else have a pond in our garden this gives the water somewhere to go, it is not ornamental but a centuries old way of shedding the water and also being able to use it for irrigation nearly every garden will have one ... but this of course soon fills up in a really wet spell . I have also laid a field drain across the top of my veg plot... but it still floods in heavy rain I think more than anything else this is due to the soil type and lack of soil depth. One thing I did want to say John is that that yellow clay subsoil is pretty fertile. I always plant my leeks very deep and they usually root down into the subsoil... get lovely leeks even with next to no watering!

[John]

Leeks are actually a good plant for clay. Their roots go into it and those left behind when harvested provide fuel for the soil ecology.