When Lorna and I moved in, we'd initially decided to put four 2.4m x 1.2m raised beds in the garden around a central square raised bed with a pear tree in the centre. A couple of weeks ago, we were out in the garden and got talking about whether this was an efficient use of our space. Ultimately, we decided to change our mind and have defined areas of the garden, 6 raised beds and a vegetable patch.

Before we began

Today was the first day of a spring holiday I've taken to do things in the garden and decided to start on the vegetable patch. Unlike raised beds, which need the raised edges constructing, a vegetable patch is a fairly straightforward affair. In fact there are really only three parts to this job:

Measure up the edges to dig up to Dig up the surface Plough the soil

Measuring up

Measure twice, cut once

Whenever it comes to measuring up something for digging, the best investment you can make is to buy a builder's line and some spare pins. These are really useful for making a sharp line and that you can ensure it's properly square. I've tried in the past to make do and guess, but they always look a bit crap.

I rarely throw wood offcuts away as they'll always come in useful one day. One such thing was making a set square - it's just some old pieces of decking with a 90° angle and two 45° angles. With the line in the ground, it really helps in ensuring that you're on a right angle. This is particularly useful when getting the final plot square.

Set square marking 90° - the pieces of wood are 1 metre long, which gives some idea of size

When laying out the pegs, the first edge is the most important as it will dictate how everything is set out. I laid the first two pegs parallel to the fruit bush patch (which I know to be a straight line). The distance was 70cm, which seems to be plenty large enough for us to kneel and work on the beds - this is less important on the vegetable patch, but I want this consistent with the gaps between raised beds. It's also wide enough for the lawn mower (something I only checked after I'd dug everything out embarrassingly). Getting the rest of the pegs positioned is simply a case of using the set square to give 90° and work round until you've closed the line.

Our final vegetable patch is L shaped, 6.6m x 7.6m at it's widest parts.

Digging

Many years ago, my dad bought me a half moon turf cutter. For getting up turf, these things are invaluable. Using an ordinary spade will likely result in curves on the edges (which looks a bit crap), but you can also use the for cutting the turf into squares so it can be reused elsewhere. In the end, I gave it away on Freegle which is a great way of picking up and offloading garden stuff.

Cut the turf into squares

Once you've cut the turf into squares, you will be able to use a spade to lift it off the turf pieces. The size of the turf squares are a bit of a compromise: you want them big enough to avoid having to cut lines you don't need, but not so big that you can't pick them up when you're tired after moving 2 tonnes of them. For comparison, my squares were approximately 18 inches, about twice the width of my spade.

The turf can take up quite a space - this was approx 3m x 1m x 1m and weighs 2-3 tonnes

Once I'd dug up the soil, I then got a fork and went through it all and turned the soil. The soil was highly compacted and took quite a time to till. I'm hoping that it's easier and quicker in future years now I've loosened it. It appears that the ground hadn't been cultivated in the 30 years since the house has been on the plot. I managed to pull out a wheelbarrow full of some sizable stones, rocks and rubble and joined Richard Herring's Guild of Stone Clearers in the process.

The stones cleared out of the veg patch

When the soil was all nicely turned, I broadcast (gardeners jargon for "chuck it") some chicken manure onto the soil. I did the manuring after turning on the basis that, had I turned it first, the pellets would fall to the bottom of the soil and give nutrients below the root level. Time will tell if this was correct or not. Also, we've got rain forecast in the next couple of days so the pellets should break up nicely once they get wet.

One thing I love about gardening (and I know this makes me sound like a right spanner) is that I can commune with nature. We've put a bird box on the conker trees and I was able to watch a blue tit coming and going to feed it's mate whilst she's getting ready to lay eggs. For most of the time whilst I was digging, I was accompanied by a blackbird waiting for me to dig up worms that he'd then go and nick whilst I wasn't looking. If I took a 5 minute break, he'd look at me as if to say "I'm not paying you to rest - get digging" and would get fairly close to me. I really think I'll be able to feed him out of my hand before too long.

This blackbird spent most of the time supervising me (and nicking worms I'd dug up)

Next job later in the week is to start sowing my veg, but for the time being this job is complete