Muddy Vegetable Patch

I'm new here so Hi all!

I'm starting a veg patch in my back garden - a friend delivered me a couple of tonnes of soil which I have made into a raised (about a foot) bed. I mixed in about 8 bags of fairly well rotted manure when I put in in, and dug over the underlying soil first too. However since I did that (about a fortnight ago) it doesn't seem to have stopped raining really hard (I live in North Wales, so I that means quite a lot of rain). And the soil seems to be quite clay-ey, which means it has turned into one big muddy wallow. I've got some onion sets I want to plant, but I haven't had chance to dig the soil to a fine tilth, so it is just big clumps at the moment. My book says you can't really dig it like this, so I'm not sure what to do -

Wait for it to dry out (could be months round here)?
Dig in some more organic matter?
Cover it with something to keep the rain off?
Plant the onion sets anyway and hope for the best?

It says in my book that clay soil is ok for growing veg once combined with organic matter, but I'm going to have to build that up over a few years really.

Anyway, any advice on what I should do now greatfully appreciated!

Thanks,
Tamsin

 

If you've raised it a foot, dug over the underlying soil, added organic matter, sounds like you got the ideal conditions if it would only stop raining - the only other thing you could add to improve drainage is grit - or incorporate drainage pipes to your raised beds - water will always take the easiest route. My inclination from what you describe would be cover with plastic for a week and then plant.Surely it can not always rain where you are

 

Hi,
Thanks seems like the best option so have covered it in plastic and am waiting for it to dry out a bit

Heh, and yes it seems like it always rains here, I might counting dry days actually just to see...

Thanks for the advice!
Tamsin