NO idea whare to start... HELP

If you have glass and rubbish in the beds then you need to dig a bit at a time and clear out the rubbish as you go. Dig the straw in as you go. leave the beds raised and use the bits in between as paths. Just pile the soil back up as it slips off.

You can't plant anything this time of the year but you can take the breaks in the weather to tidy up before the spring planting.

There ain't no lazy way till you have got the basics right. 

Cheer up - I'm nearly 64 and female and I can cope with digging and stuff so you'll be alright. 

just dig a little bit over and clear it each time you go down .wont seem so hard then. in our first year i got one of those little cold frames and set leeks and cabbage and courgette etc is amazing how much i managed to fit in! saves lots of money, i then had plenty of plants ready to go in the allotment once it was cleared ...good luck

hi , welcome ,

it makes no difference if you are male or female ,

you are an allotmenteer , horticulturist lol,

welcome and good luck

Hi.

I got my allotment last May and I'm still digging out the bindweed and couch grass etc. I decided that I really needed to see something growing while I progressed with the digging, so I dug enough to get some spuds in, then I dug enough to plant beetroot, then onions etc.

OK, at this time of year you don't have that many options but it might not be too late to put down some over-wintering garlic and onions - the varieties to choose are now selling as 'autumn planting'. In fact, I've just discovered that garlic respond well to a period of cold weather (below 10 degrees C). That's one reason why the garlic I planted last June were pathetic.

There are other things that you can plant now.  For example, raspberries and other fruit bushes, strawberries and rhubarb - they're in the garden centres now. I've just finished digging over a patch for rhubarb and I'm preparing the next patch for bare rooted raspies. Then it's blueberries and cranberries in their own ericateous bed. In each case I'm digging weeds that have had the plot to themselves for at least four years, so it's really bad.

So that's what I would suggest - dig a bit, plant a bit, even at this time of year. That way you can see the results of your labour. And the earlier you get things like rhubarb and the various berry plants (which really only start producing good quantities in their second summer/autumn), the sooner you'll get to taste the results.

Good luck.