Changing existing north east facing decking area into a raised bed àrea.

[sheena]

The joists under the decking had rotted, so decided just to take out and refurb the frame and turn back into a raised growing area, reusing the actual decking to create the raised beds.
Underneath the decking is all old rubble.
what would you all recommend to give me maximum growing in a north east facing garden,it gets the sun first thing and late afternoon and evening.
I was thinking of putting a non permeable base down and topping with soil and green manure,
a)How do i go around best drainage?
B) Is there anything else i need to do to maximise what i grow.
C) Does it matter if i run the beds width or lengthways?
D) What would you recommend planting for a good yield in this position.
All help greatly appreciated x

[Green Aura]

a) Break up the rubble and put it in the bottom of the beds - that's your drainage.
b) I'd make beds of different heights, if there's room for more than one - to accommodate root crops and maximise light access.
c) I'm not sure exactly what you mean but I'd put the long side facing the light, so you make the most of what's available.
d) It depends what you want - veg, flowers, perennial, annual, mixture of all? Just look up shade, or part shade, loving plants. There are almost certainly more than you think. The area next to my kitchen is NEish and only gets sun in the morning but we've grown everything from roses to broccoli there.

[sheena]

Thankyou for your message.
So eager to get things growing in there, the decking was lovely but such a waste of growing space.xx

[Skippy]

I've had to remove a couple of decks in the past for customers. Common construction seems to be to concrete vertical posts into the ground with the framework on top of those. This does mean there are some pretty large lumps of concrete that come out. One had the ground covered in rubble , broken brick ends and such and the other in road stone or scrapings . There's a fair bit of work either breaking up the large lumps or humping them into the skip ?
What's the thinking behind the non permeable membrane? I'd personally not bother with that at all.