How do I make a small flower bed into a veg bed

[bambootoo]

I have a small bit of flower bed with some ugly shrubs that I would like to get rid of. It's only about 30-50cm wide and 3 or 4 metres long between with fence and the brick edge to the lawn.

I would love to dig it up and grow peas and beans and maybe a climber at one end of the fence. It's east facing and fairly sheltered

Is this enough room? Do I have enough time to get started fr this year? How do I prepare the soil?

I have grown veg in pots before but pretty clueless when it comes to the garden. Any suggestions, websites to look at really welcome

That's fine. Take out what you don't want and dig it over. There are loads of different types of beans and peas so you cam decide what you want to do. You could go for things like runners which if you are going to do you can prepare now digging a bean trench and filling it with kitchen veg peelings and you will need to build a supporting frame, Wilkos sell them cheaply. You could see if you can get some well rotted manure and dig that in, Runners are hungry feeders. Only do them if you like them though otherwise you find yourself with bags of them though. I grew one last year called Celebration, lovely salmon coloured flowers. You could also do some dwarf or climbing French beans, some lovely varities around that have purple or yellow beans if you'd like some colour.

Peas come in varying heights and some are for earlier in the season than others. I'm doing Mangetout as you do need a large amount to have anything other than a few that never make it to the kitchen. Golden Sweet is the one I'm doing this year.

Broad beans is one you can get going with now. I plant in modules then plant out when more established.

Spend a bit of time looking at Real Seeds web site, some lovely varities there and More Veg have a good selection cheaply , small quantities but that would be fine. You can use the shade the beans provide to squeeze in a few lettuce and something we grew last year is Rainbow chard which is fab and looks beautiful and we used the leaves as a spinach replacement and stalks in stirfries and curries. Radishes grow very quickly so would be good earlier in the season whislst you are waiting to do Runners and French beans which can't go out until after the last frosts. Have fun !

Also have a google on squarefoot gardening to help you plan the space to the best advantage