"Pam Morris" wrote in
:

So.... when I've finished the actual digging & levelling bit - should
I be digging in compost to the whole bed or can I just add it where
needed for the plants? Should I add anything else to the soil to
improve it.

Not sure my advice is expert, but I'll give it a go.

For a 6x4 bed you really need to dig in whatever you are adding to it all
over - it isn't really big enough to do in bits. Garden compost is good,
or well-rotted cow or horse manure. You don't need to buy bags of compost
from the garden centre for this - rotted lawn cuttings and hedge clippings
are just as good as soil conditioners, and a lot cheaper.

If the digging-in seems like a lot of work, you can mulch instead, and
allow all those worms to do the digging for you. The more mulching you do,
the better your soil will get, until you end up growing on layers of lovely
brown rotted-down mulch!

I mulch shrubs and robust perennials with anything that comes along - fresh
chopped weeds, cut grass, hedge clippings, newspaper - anything but the
roots of persistent weeds.

If you are planning to plant seeds direct in the soil, though, you will
need to use properly-rotted compost and dig it in.

I am impatient, so I plant seeds in pots and plant them out into my mulched
beds as soon as the plants are big enough not to get buried under the
mulch, or sat on by cats.

Victoria