Advice on making a new vegetable plot

[gardenmonkey]

Hello,
I am making a new vegetable plot from an area at the bottom of my garden. There was a patio on the area and I have pulled up the slabs. Under the slabs it is mostly clay soil but there is an area of concrete about 17' by 7' which is 3" thick or so. I intend to break it up with a concrete breaker and then cover the whole thing with about 3 or 4 inches of topsoil and then build some raised beds on top of that.
My question is should I leave the bits of broken up concrete in there? It might be good for drainage but I've also been told it will rise to the surface so I should get rid of it if I can.
If anyone has opinions on raised beds as well then I'd be interested to hear them too.

[bantiekeeper]

Hi there, I would remove the rubble. Keep the size of your beds about 4' wide so you can reach the middle from either side. 8' x 4' is about right. If you buy packs of timber 2.4m (8') long you can just cut some in half for the ends. This saves a lot of time measuring and cutting.

[johntheeng]

Originally Posted by bantiekeeper

Hi there, I would remove the rubble. Keep the size of your beds about 4' wide so you can reach the middle from either side. 8' x 4' is about right. If you buy packs of timber 2.4m (8') long you can just cut some in half for the ends. This saves a lot of time measuring and cutting.

This is good advice. the size of the beds is good although you can make them longer, it just takes longer to walk round them.

[johnmichael]

I agree with other answers.

[malcolmx]

sounds like a good plan i would remove all concrete and dig over the clay as deeply as possible earth under foundations often is compressed with little or no air, water can often stagnate and sour the soil i would dig as deeply as possible and add any sand or grit you have break up the soil and add as much composted material you can find . if you put raised beds on top of the clay you can control the composition of of the soil