Complete Newbie starting a project, help appreciated!

Hi forum

My name is Omer, I live in inner city Nottingham and recently moved into a new house with my family. Both grandfathers and their ancestors were farmers but my father broke the trend when he went to law school, so perhaps my blood has some horticultural magic in it. That said my head has little horticultural knowledge in it. Thats why im here, after looking through the forum a little I think you guys know exactly how to help.
I am looking to grow some edibles, tomatoes, mint, thyme, lettuce or cucumbers and perhaps fruit like blackberries and strawberries. I will upload some picture of the area i want to grow on, the wall in the picture is 6 degrees north facing. I have some equipment, namely a spade, a trowel, a fork, some gloves, a sieve and a scoop. The soil I cant really describe to be honest to me soil feels like soil, though ive taken some pictures of the stuff.

Like i mentioned earlier, I am completely new to this, i don't know what to do and in what order to do them so any reading materials will be useful

If you need any more info just ask, and thanks in advance for any help guys its appreciated

p.s. just to make things more difficult im moving to a new city in September to start university, so i am merely laying the foundations for my family to build upon

 

Welcome to GC Omer I'm sure you'll find plenty of advice and inspiration here

 

Welcome to Gardeners' Corner Omer!

Many of the plants you list are a "next year" project, as now is the time to harvest tomatoes, and cucumbers, rather than to plant them. We look forward to seeing some photographs of your garden and soil. It may be that you could get some lettuce seeds, and herb plants going now, for your family can be harvesting this autumn. A word of warning. Mint grows very strong roots, and can be invasive, spreading underground. Many people grow it in a large bucket, with drainage holes made in the base, and then buried in the ground...

 

Hello again

Thankyou for the introduction Ellen and thank you for the info Sian, could i perhaps plant the seeds now and just have to wait for next year to harvest? or would planting them now just kill them?

And ill be sure to plant the mint seperatly, had it at my old house and yes it went mental

Here are those pictures I promised

This is the bed im planning on planting in, its about 3 metres, There are some picture of the soil too.

 

Sorry that posted multiple times. Anyway im on standby awaiting your instructions, should i dig up and turnover the soil first or pull out all those weeds?

 

Hello and welcome.
That soil does look very heavy doesn't it? I think I would start by getting it dug and getting some good compost into it. Those weeds will need to have all, or as much as possible, of their roots removed too.
Is that a rather fine Rosemary at the back of the pic there?
Great to have you with us.

 

It does look like a rosemary I'd keep that, but I'm terrible at starting one from seed, they have a great burst of growth, then suddenly go on me :(

 

it is indeed a rosemary, you guys are good! :p Im fasting today but i will start digging the area up with a spade and i shall try to get the roots out, will round-up help at all?

 

Hello and welcome Omer.

You said the wall is north facing, but I see a healthy looking young Rosemary plant up against it, and Rosemary doesn't like shade, so I'm wonder if I've misunderstood. With your back to the wall, facing into the garden, are you facing north? Its quite important because it limits what you can grow.

Preparation is key. If the wall faces north, I'd paint it white to capture as much light as possible. I'm not sure how much difference it would make it practical terms, but worth brightening it up.

You need to get rid of those weeds too. As its only a small area, I'd be inclined to spray it all with round-up (having dug out and potted up that rosemary first).

Once all the weeds are dead, I'd dig the lot of over, and add some manure to enrich it. For an area that size it will be cheap enough to just buy a few sacks from the garden centre or B&Q.

Or you could do it the old fashioned way, and just dig the weeds out, removing every piece of root you can find. Still add the manure too though.

You're a bit limited as to what you can grow now. You could look at leaf beet / chard (chard, bright lights or rainbow chard is worth having, and gives colour through winter). There are other winter vegs, @Zigs usually has a few on his list.

 

Sorry clueless, thats my newbie ignorance when i sad north i meant that me standing facing id be looking north, with my back to it id be facing south. Ive sprayed the weeds with round up weedkiller and now im going to dig up the area an turn the soil over, while trying to pull out weed roots

 

Excellent. Then you are really lucky, because that means that patch will be a proper little sun trap.

It does change things slightly though. Only slightly mind. A raised bed in a sheltered south facing spot will dry out quickly. Plenty of manure will help there, and you might want to think about using mulches once you have plants in. Or, plant it densely enough so that very little bare soil is exposed to the weather.

Its early days yet, so I'd focus on getting rid of the weeds and getting the manure in there and generally making it nice and lovely ready for stuff to go in later.

 

Welcome to Gardeners Corner

Like the others have said, mostly too late in the year, but you could try some overwintering crops like Mizuna, Lambs Lettuce, Land Cress, Yellow Mustard & Purple Sprouting Broccoli.

You could plant Garlic in October too

 

Did you save the Rosemary from the Roundup? I don't use weedkillers at all so I don't know how it is applied.

 

Roundup probably wont work on Rosemary, bit shrubby.

 

I bet it would, but I'm not going to test it