Gardening Novice...advice please.

[Buster144]

DH have recently moved into a house with a lovely size garden. The previous owners had created lovely raised beds that they put potted plants on. I would like to use these space to grow flowers and veggies (very new to it). In the current raised beds is solid mud. We are having this removed, but are both unsure of what we should actually refill it with for growing plants. Do we just buy soil and then use some compost too or what? Any suggestions are appreciated.

I just use compost personally, nothing else.

I'm only a beginner myself and have no advice for you regarding the beds, but I'd strongly advise that you buy yourself multiple pairs of nice sturdy gardening gloves, I find mine invaluable and love being able to change into a dry pair halfway through a job if the first pair gets too mucky.

Why are you removing the 'mud' (aka soil) from the beds?

If it has gone solid, that means that it would benefit from having a lot of organic material added to it such as compost, manure etc. But all growing things need the bacteria that lives naturally in soil, so it could be a real mistake to remove the soil that is already there.

Could you post a photo to show the condition of the soil and the way the beds are constructed?

Have a look at the 'no-dig' method (lots of videos on Youtube). Water the soil very thoroughly, give it an absolute soaking, then put a thick layer of compost on top of the soil you have, and plant into that. Rely on worms to take the compost down if the soil is hard to dig into.

I'm interested in why the previous owners put potted plants on the beds. Were they just using the beds to hold containers, like glorified tables, and the plants grew in the containers?

What MrsAird said. Although maybe the beds were filled with subsoil for some reason? Definitely need photos. If you want to grow veg for the first time courgettes are really easy - bombproof and you get loads per plant. Look great too and take up a good deal of space.