How do I dig a new vegetable garden?

Part One: Preparing your Patch.

Nothing compares with delicious homegrown vegetables. You can have them fresh on the table all year round, if you choose and prepare your site carefully. Here I'll give a rundown on cultivating your soil to give your vegetable garden a great start. In June, there'll be advice on planting and nurturing your first seedlings.

Firstly, select a site for your vegetable garden that offers good sunlight, protection from strong winds and good drainage.

It's important to improve your soil for vegetable production: soils should be friable, allowing good water movement, air penetration and effective micro-organism activity.

There are a number of strategies you may pursue here. Firstly, you can overcome compaction by cultivating the soil. This is most important in new gardens where building activity will undoubtedly have caused compaction. Rotavators can bounce over compacted soils so, if possible, compacted soils should be ripped to 400mm to break up the lower soils.

Compaction is a problem in clay soils. In this case, add gypsum to the soil. The result will be

	improved soil structure
	improved water penetration
	improved aeration

Now that you've improved the structure of the soil, you will need to add organic material to improve the long-term health of the garden. Many organic materials can be added to soil to improve it. Household compost is one, though generally it is difficult to generate enough material to support a large garden area.

'Green manure' is another option. This means growing a crop with the sole purpose of digging it straight back into the soil, to improve soil fertility and structure. Lupins or clovers are especially useful since they fix nitrogen into the soil as they grow. Such green manure provides nutrients and also breaks up clay soils, encouraging the activity of micro-organisms, worms, and other creatures essential to soil health.