[spade or shovel?]

Hello all, as I said in my introduction message in the new to the forum bit , I know nothing about gardening at all. I have recently moved to Linconshire and have aquired what I would call a large garden. At the moment it is all lawn, but I have been told that the bottom half ( there is a hedge growing half way up the garden ) used to be a very good allotment. The garden faces north east, gets sun( when its out!) from early morning till pretty much dusk. So I hope thats enough information about me and my new venture nowI have some questions which if anyone has the time I would be most gratful of help with
1. I have read books and watched the films on here, I really like the river cottage stuff ( just for information) as any little bit of help I can get I will take. On the videos on here Mr Harrison seems to plant everything in what I would call raised beds ( sleepers/ planks of wood ) . So do I need to start like this or can I simply mark out a small area, take off the turf and start to dig?
2. Should / can I start to dig now?
3. I was thinking of an area of say 3 metres by 6 metres is that a fair starting size?
4. I would like to start with some potatoes ( which would you good people recommend? ) some carrots ( which ? ) some onions ( which ) and some garlic , I took note that it needs to English garlic, where would you buy this from please. I have a conservatory so was thinking of planting the garlic and putting it on the window sill, is this the right time to be doing this?

My main thoughts were to start with just 4 different items and see how I got on, I didn't want to dig up the whole garden and try and turn into the "good-life" overnight! Sorry for all the questions, some of which I know will have been asked many times before, I just hoped for a small nudge in the right direction as a complete novice at all of this.

Kind regards

Dave

[mumofstig]

You do not have to have raised beds, the idea is just to make beds of a size that you can reach across for working, without having to tread on them.
Many of us just have areas of soil planted in lines.....neither way is wrong, just a matter of choice.

You can indeed start your digging now

3 x 6 is the area I started with in my garden..........and gradually dug more, so beware it is addictive

There are so many good potatoes I wouldn't like to recommend just one have a look here to see what people have grown, and their results this year. It may help you choose.
I'll leave the onions and garlic to someone else 

[DD.]

Winter onions and garlic can be bought now from most garden centres.

Garlic does not need to be inside, in fact it needs the cold winter weather inorder to split cloves.

[Dave Mack]

Hiya again Dave , it sounds like your doing what i started last October in our large back garden , first i took the grass off four areas ( 4x8 foot ) then started getting the stones and * out of the soil , then i started digging in Blood Fish and Bone ( BFB ) feed , then after leaving it through the winter ... i decided to tidy things up a bit by putting scaffolding boards around each 4x8 foot area and started planting in March , as i emptied my beds of its crops from this summer ... i started filling the beds with top soil and will be putting  compost over the beds about November then leave till March next year for the start of the season .
So as MOS said ... yes you can do it both ways , raised beds or on flat ground  

Edit ... the * is a word the site wont allow that begins with s , muck and grass mixed 

[rachelr]

me and OH were in the same position as you this time last year, we moved to a house with a large garden lol. we used freecycle to get pallets and made a sort of picket fence. (we have dogs and now chickens). We only dug over half of the area and fertilised with manure and stuff. The other half we dug over and left(ran out of time). We grew our own potatoes, beans runner and broad, cauliflower, carrots and tomatoes.

The side which we had dug over and manured gave a much better crop yield than the other side which we premanured before we sowed.

The feeling of growing your own and eating it is brill. OK so some of my carrots were very oddly shaped, and my cauliflowers although very tasty were a bit on the small side. They were still our own and they tasted lovely.
Rachel

[sunshineband]

Hi there

As Mumofsig says, you will soon move on from that 3 x 6 m area  : it is good to start with something that feels manageable, and even better when you can eat something you have grown.

Best of luck with your venture. Plenty of advice on here about ways to start etc and lots of articles in the Growing Help button at the top of the page too. 

[spade or shovel?]

Well all, what can I say ! Many thanks for the replies, it is so nice to know that everyone has to start somewhere. I think I shall mark out my first "plot" and get digging asap. One thing I thought of , we have a friend that has horses and our neighbours Dad is a farmer so I have been offered manure by the trailer load!!! so from what one of the replies said ( sorry I cant remember what your name was but thankyou ) I guess I should be digging and mixing in the muck now ready for planting some time next year I guess? Is that about right, once again many thanks to all for your help so far, really great site.

Kind regards

Dave

[rachelr]

dave free manure is hard to come by. Any chance of some for local friends lol

[Yorkie]

Before you accept the manure, double check that no herbicide called aminopyralid or clopyralid could have made its way into the manure (either through being on eaten grass or bedding).  It'll kill toms, spuds & beans.

Be aware that wireworms are a common pest in former grass areas, which eat spuds.  Might be worth getting nematodes for them if possible when growing next year.

As DD says, overwintering onions and garlic are being sold now,  Leave spuds till next Spring.  And don't manure where you plan to plant carrots