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I added this to my 'lessons learned' list, and wonder if anybody has any idea what might have gone wrong. 
We planted our beans here, some left over leeks and a few spare celeriac as well as some marigolds, a squash and a cucumber.
The beans have only just reached the tops of their strings, some of them aren't even half way.
The marigolds curled up their toes, the leeks are no bigger than when they went in, the squash and cucumber died.
The only thing that seems vaguely okay is the celeriac, they're really tiddly, but were spares that should have been thrown away - so we don't know if they'd have done better somewhere else.
It was freshly 'double dug' from lawn, same as the main veg patch. The grass was fine before it was dug up.
The subsoil was broken up, but not brought upwards, well rotted stuff from the compost heap and kitchen waste was mixed into the lower spit, then covered with a mixture of soil and shop-bought compost (cheap split bags) to act as a 'soil improver', because the soil's such heavy clay - same as the other new veg patch. Oh, and it got some BFB too, and was allowed to rest a while before anything was planted.
We did exactly the same with our bigger, also new-this-year, veg patch and have got some fairly decent crops - except for Basil, which simply refuses to get more than four leaves. Both patches have been looked after equally 'well' since they were dug.
One newly dug part of our garden needs investigating, because nothing that was planted in it has grown, and some things died within a couple of weeks of going into the ground. It can't be aminopyralid because it wasn't manured, and we haven't used any weedkiller on any part of our garden (including the gravel drive) this year.
We planted our beans here, some left over leeks and a few spare celeriac as well as some marigolds, a squash and a cucumber.
The beans have only just reached the tops of their strings, some of them aren't even half way.
The marigolds curled up their toes, the leeks are no bigger than when they went in, the squash and cucumber died.
The only thing that seems vaguely okay is the celeriac, they're really tiddly, but were spares that should have been thrown away - so we don't know if they'd have done better somewhere else.
It was freshly 'double dug' from lawn, same as the main veg patch. The grass was fine before it was dug up.
The subsoil was broken up, but not brought upwards, well rotted stuff from the compost heap and kitchen waste was mixed into the lower spit, then covered with a mixture of soil and shop-bought compost (cheap split bags) to act as a 'soil improver', because the soil's such heavy clay - same as the other new veg patch. Oh, and it got some BFB too, and was allowed to rest a while before anything was planted.
We did exactly the same with our bigger, also new-this-year, veg patch and have got some fairly decent crops - except for Basil, which simply refuses to get more than four leaves. Both patches have been looked after equally 'well' since they were dug.
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