Hi Laburnumway and welcome to GoY good to know you want to turn your lawn into a veggie patch, assuming it is in good sunlight you will need to do the following:

Strip off and stack the lawn turves upside down somewhere, if you are having a lot of turves removed then you might want to hire a turf cutter.

Use a pick axe or similar to break up the soil underneath as this will be very compacted.

Dig in a lot of well rotted manure, compost or other organic matter.

Start growing your veggies. In the first year it is a good idea to grow nothing but potatoes as the work you do on them will help to clear the soil of any bits of weed root etc. Then just go ahead and grow the veggies you like.

Why not take some photos and make a blog about the process?

Hi Moon growe,

Thanks very much for your answer to my question. Most books on this subject seem to talk about preparing the ground from an existing vegetable plot.

You are welcome, check out my blogs which are, primarily, about growing veggies using the lunar cycle. Friends of ours bought their retirement place a couple of years ago and did exactly what I have advised to create their veggie bed.

Will do thanks.

Hello, MG ... how does one grow vegetables according to the lunar cycle? Sounds a wee bit strange, but then, I tend to plant for the seasons and the weather. Will check out your blog, if I can get to it - my computer has a mind of its own these days!

Well read my blogs or don't. When I first learned how to grow veggies everyone grew organically. Growing following the lunar cycle just brings something else into play - every lunar month there are good times for sowing and working with the 4 different types of veg. roots, leaves, seeds and flowers... Equally good and bad times to harvest for storage... all in the blogs or send me a pm if you are interested.

Thank you MG. Would hiring a rotorvator help with digging over the compacted ground? You need someone with a strong arm to operate it, but one day's hire, could save days and days of digging by hand, and it will break up the soil beautifully, especially if you can go over it a couple of times. It really depends on how large the plot is ... just an idea!

To break up the ground underneath where grass has been a pick axe works best... I watched Bulba doing exactly this in the garden of friends of ours last autumn. A rotavator could work I guess if the area was large enough. Certainly when we had a croft in Aberdeenshire we relied on the rotavator and the use of a neighbouring farmers tractor and plough - but that was 3 acres. In a small area a pick axe should do fine. Then you dig over and are ready to add compost/manure etc and there you go