How to Get The Ground Ready

The ideal time to begin preparing the site is in early autumn, but certainly before Christmas. If you are starting from scratch with a plot of virgin soil that has not been cultivated within recent years, avoid the common mistake of cleaning away and burning the top covering of rough grass and mixture of perennial and annual weeds, for these will have provided the soil with a store of natural plant nutrients. Start by digging a trench at one end of the plot, the width and depth of a full-size spade. Carry the dugout clods, complete with grass and weeds, to the far end of the plot where they will be needed for filling in the final length of trenching. After having opened the trench, start digging to the full depth of the spade, turning over each spade completely, so that the grass and weeds are at the bottom. Then as you progress row by row, make sure that all the vegetation is well and truly covered by soil.

With the plot well dug, frost, wind and rain will play their part; and in early spring, when the soil begins to warm up, weed and grass seeds will germinate and perennial weed roots start to shoot. Now is the time to get them out, using the three- pronged cultivator to break up the top few inches and the hoe to cut off the weeds. Make this a weekly routine, and don’t start sowing until you have completely beaten the weeds.

Land that has been growing grass and weeds for years is inclined to be acid and short of calcium, so check the pH level; if it is below pH 6 an application of garden lime will benefit all vegetable crops with the exception of potatoes.

If you are taking over a neglected vegetable garden or allotment, the soil is likely to be deficient in natural fertility. Again the best time to start putting matters right is in the autumn. Winter digging, with compost or farmyard manure incorporated at the right time, will soon bring life and fertility back to exhausted soils. Go carefully with potatoes and brassicas until you are certain that neither potato eelworm nor clubroot are lying in wait. Either of these problems could be the reason for the previous owner’s neglect or decision to quit.