Help for a completely clueless novice, please?

[Whathappenedtothelego]

I have an empty flower bed that Dd and I have just pulled up all the weeds from.
It is about 2-3 metres square.
The soil looks quite good to me - very dark and crumbly.

There are quite a lot of dried bits of bark/wood mixed in - should I try to remove them?

I don't know what to plant - ideally I would like vegetables or herbs.

Garden is north facing, but this patch gets a lot of sun from the East on sunny days.

Are vegetables realistic? Would it have to be seeds or can you get part grown vegetable plants? Or can you plant nuts? Dd wants strawberries.

Basically if someone could tell me exactly what to do, that would be great. I've never had a garden before.

If vegetables won't work, then low maintenance flowers, maybe. Something that smells nice?

Depends on the vegetables most are planted in March

Strawberries will grow well and you can buy plants for those

Something like carrots or down growing vegetables will need the soil sifted as they can’t grow round rocks!

Peas with roots will be ok in this soil.

I always think it’s a good idea to plant the taller, “structural” plants at the back first and work forwards. So shrubs, trees, climbers, that kind of thing.

In this case, if you want edibles, runner bean plants in a trellis would give you height quickly and they have lovely, vivid red flowers, but you’ll have to be quick.

Currant bushes in front of that, maybe?

Ooh, runner beans and peas would be amazing!
And that would be great if strawberries would work. I like the sound of currant bushes too - does that mean blackcurrants?
I don't even know where the nearest garden centre is - feel like I am entering a new world.

Don’t bother with back currents there’s loads free and they take over

Blackcurrant will become a fairly large shrub but is attractive and smells nice so personally I'd get one. Without wishing to state the obvious, just make sure you grow what you enjoy eating! Plus things that you can't buy in the supermarket or cost a lot. I'd have climbing French beans up a wigwam (just because they're easy and quick), peas, raspberries, sorrel, one blackberry bush, alpine strawberries (the teeny tiny ones that slowly spread and are great ground cover) plus thyme and lavender. I'd also add a wigwam for sweet peas as they add such beauty and fragrance to a veggie patch.

It's too late in the season to start from seed but you should be able to get most of this in plant form (but wait until later in the year to plant raspberries).

Another suggestion if you have a fence or frame for them to be attached to is loganberries - easy to grow and impossible to buy (they are a blackberry/raspberry cross).

Thanks, feeling quite excited now!

I've made a list ready to go to the garden centre at the weekend.

I've been weeding more this afternoon and managed to pull up what looks like a walnut sapling. It's about 10 cm high. It looks like a split walnut at the bottom above the root. I shoved it back in again, hopefully it will be ok.

Also there seems to be a sort of black sheet thing a few inches down. I'm guessing it is some sort of membrane, but don't know what it is for.

A quick herb garden can be made by planting Rosemary, parsley and mint that’s in the pots at the supermarket.
Warning, put the mint in a large pot because it spreads everywhere in the flower bed.

I shoved it back in again, hopefully it will be ok. It'll be a good many years before it fruits. They say you plant them for your grandchildren. Handsome tree, though.

The membrane is probably a weed suppression membrane form a good few years ago. It sounds like it was covered with a bark chipping mulch which has now rotted down to give you the beautiful soil you describe. You could remove the whole thing while you have the bed empty. If you decide not to bother, then you'll have to think about cutting holes under anything you plant, else all the roots will be confined to the top few inches and will be susceptible to drought.

You can buy vegetable plants, usually in April-May. Runner beans, Climbing French beans, Mangetout.sugar snap peas are all easy from seed, and you could just about get a last sowing in - it's a bit late though and it might not be successful - you'd be hoping for a good growing season and a good autumn with no frost.. Swiss chard is ok for sowing now, and some of the salad crops.

Thank you, I think it would be quite a big job to get the membrane out, so we will cut holes in it - that's good to know.