I have been growing vegetable since I was very young. Where I grew up and spent first half of my adult life, we had six acres of woodland and the garden started with a small clearing, which was gradually extended.

If you wanted to start a new plot it involved cutting down brambles, bushes and occasionally a tree and digging out the roots before any crops could go in.

Real pioneering stuff and great fun for a junior grower. It was here that I became addicted to all kinds of gardening, but especially to growing food crops. Since then I’ve moved home twice and twice started completely new vegetable plots.

My first move was on a snowy December day and it was some weeks before I could start on a vegetable plot. Fortunately much of the garden had been laid to lawn, comparatively easy to dig up and then with a load of spent mushroom compost rotated in, planting could begin with shallots and broad beans in February.

My second move was on April 1, to a quarter acre that had once been part of a plum orchard. It was time to start spring planting and a week later I sowed the first seeds in a windowsill propagator and called in a man with a tractor to pull out, clear and burn some old bushes and roughly turn over site for the kitchen garden.

The next step was to call on a sturdy teenage neighbour to help with digging during his Easter holiday. By end of the month I had planted or sown a range of vegetables in the open and started half-hardies in the propagator and by midsummer I was bringing in fresh veg every day.

A bit of everything In a first growing season it’s best to grow a few plants of many kinds, for then you will find out how much they will produce, which does best on your land and which are most popular with the family. Sow a good pinch of seed every three to four weeks rather than a row of lettuce that will go to seed before all are used; avoid my cousin’s mistake on a new allotment of growing so many courgettes that his wife could think of no new ways of using them, or that of an editor friend who planted her entire greenhouse with tomatoes and was so embarrassed by the size of crop that she told me never to advise readers to grow them.

Vegetables grow best in a sunny open place. Avoid land under overhanging trees or nearby hedge whose roots will compete for water and soil nutrients. A greenhouse is invaluable for raising young plants and growing half-hardy summer crops, such as tomatoes. Its site should also be in a sunny open place, close to your home and a water supply for ease of management.

Clearing and digging even a modest area of ground is hard work, especially if you are new to gardening. Better to call in someone with a tractor or large rotovator to help with initial site preparation, or hire a machine to for a weekend Raised beds can work well, especially when soil is heavy clay, very stony or there is only a thin layer over chalk. However, most widely advertised, ready-to-assemble raised beds are too small to grow more than a few plants. When making a plot direct into the ground, dig soil to at least a good spade’s depth, removing larger stones and perennial weed roots.

Forking, or rotovating, over the soil several times before cropping the plot will allow wild birds to help clear soil pests. Before putting in long term crops such as rhubarb, perennial herbs and soft fruit it is especially important to dig out every scrap of perennial weed root.

The best plan is to plant a crop that will stay in for just a few months and delay the more permanent planting until end of the season. Most poor soils can be greatly improved over a few seasons by working in copious amounts of well-rotted, bulky organic matter.

This will help break up heavy soil and improve watering holding capacity of land that drains very freely. If you are new to vegetable growing, start with a small area of ground and grow quick and easy crops, such as radish, lettuce, shallots, courgettes and spinach.

Starting plants from seed in pots and modules saves time, as they can be developing while you are preparing the plot and these sturdy youngsters will be more able to withstand attack from pests than nearly germinated seedlings.

Join a local gardening club, or ask those working in nearby gardens and allotments for advice, for keen gardeners are almost always ready to advise newcomers.