Where to plant...in the ground or in pots/tubs/growbags etc?

I'd always do veg in the ground, you will find it hard to keep on top of the watering in pots. having said that, I usually do tomatoes in a pot or gro bag and strawberries/ blueberries etc do well too. Potatoes work wonders for breaking up the soil if it is claggy, and you can grow peas and beans on any old soil.

We spent the whole day clearing in the garden today. Hoping to build a raised bed to grow veg. Have never grown any before & really don't know where to start. The bin of potatoes sounds great. Can you do one for earlies & one for main crop or throw them all in together?

I would do one for each as you will be harvesting them at different times so by putting them in together you would be disturbing the later harvest and possibly damaging the plant. You could probably get about 4 spud plants growing in a bin. HTH x

We spent the whole day clearing in the garden today. Hoping to build a raised bed to grow veg. Have never grown any before & really don't know where to start. The bin of potatoes sounds great. Can you do one for earlies & one for main crop or throw them all in together?

I would start with things you eat a lot of and that are expensive to buy, or hard to keep fresh at home. Courgettes, Salad, green beans (easy to grow and fun to train, you get tons of them) are all good to start with. Salad onions too, also I am planting purple sprouting broccoli this year so we have something for the bleak midwinter. Pumpkins are fun for the kiddies or crown prince or buttenut squash - again easy to grow and expensive to buy. Get the most benefit for all your effort!!

I've never grown peas but I bet kids would love those too. We have some raspberry canes but they are better after they are well established, but all soft fruit is a winner, can get eaten by the birds tho.

A friend was telling me the other day that asparagus is really easy to grow too. Tomatoes are great as they taste so much better

I would avoid things like onions (don't see the point, they're so cheap) or carrots/ cabbages (too much trouble with pests), my mate tells me cauliflower is a PITA too!

Thought I should mention that this month's Gardener's World mag has a whole section on container gardening veg. May be of interest to you if you decide to go down the pots root.

pots root.

Courgettes seem to grow anywhere and are very prolific, cherry toms grow in tubs well, you could try salad veg too ,wild rocket is a favourite here and peas and beans are easy too,just watch out for blackfly
ETA have you looked at the Gardeners World website, that has always been a good place to check out, and its month by month too

What would you use to sort out blackfly? I've just planted some pea seeds so asking just in case

Early potatoes and maincrop potatoes should be planted separately. If you only have space for one variety, choose an early, get them chitted and in the soil soon, they take about 12 weeks. Maincrops take longer but crop more heavily and store well, but are cheap to buy in shops anyway, so only plant if you have space. They can also be planted in "bag for life" bags (the sturdier ones) or half-full compost bags with the tops rolled down. That said, if you've got heavy clay soil, it might be worth putting potatoes in there as they'll break up the ground for next year.

Butternut squashes can be difficult to grow in cooler climates, try varieties more suited to our weather if you want a reliable crop (although butternuts still can be grown here), I've got "pumpkin munchkin" to try. If you want to grow squashes or pumpkins, they'll take up a lot of space by trailing but they can be trained upwards and over stuff if you like. Tomatoes are easily grown, heavy cropping and you can make lots of products from them, and there's so many varietes - yellow pear types, stripey ones etc.

As others ahve said, raised beds, or a "no-dig" patch, would be a good option as you don't have to deal too much with the clay soil but don't have to worry so much about watering or feeding. Conatiners are good for many types of plants but try to choose dwarf varieties where possible.

Hiya,
Maybe if its new go for easy to grow things and only a few things so you can concentrate on Rhodes and then add more variety next year.
I have a sunny corner where I ve happily grown tomatoes and courgettes in pots. In my experience courgettes do best in a big pot and as there are basically water fruit they need loads of water and tomato feed. A grow bag will be fine if you don t have pots or the garden prepared.
Would you need to dig over a bit of your garden or do you have flowers in a boarder where you can squeeze some in?
I put some sprouting broccoli in a boarder next to the flowers and it was fine.
Salad leaves are great in a pot that you can pick and wash just before tea
Squash are great to grow as someone else said they re expensive to buy. I have only successfully got 1/2 squash per plant to survive in a pot, I think that was my ability to water it enough.

Most importantly have fun I love seeing things grow xxxx