[peanut97]

Hello, have removed weeds in the beds, now am wondering about the soil, I intend to dig some compost through, but the soil is very thick and clumpy, do you need to get it finer or will the veg grow ok with the lumps?

I think it is just a bit wet but being new I don't know all this! How do you make it finer? As soon as I break it up new lumps form.

[shaun]

hi peanuts
its hard to say realy without seeing the soil,but sometimes the soil is just drained of any goodness/humus that holds the moisture in and even in the winter it can dry and bake with the sun and wind,so digging in plenty of compost and/or manure will do it a world of good.
idealy to sow seed you need to get the soil down to a good tilth/crumb thats easier said than done when the soil is dry and your using just hand tools but once you start stiring in compost/manure with a fork you will see a difference.
or you could mix the manure/compost in with a rotavator in minutes

[muntjac]

allow it to dry out for a day after digging then go and take a handful and squeese it if isticks together in a lump add manure and plenty of it if it jus falls through ya fingers add even more manure  anything inbetween is great  just add manure .bu remember not on ya roots bit  for this year id use a growmore fertiliser to get the harves and then sow ya roots on ya pre manured bit