I'd like to name here some books that I found very useful for beginners:
Brett Lantz, Machine Learning with R Deliver Data Insights with R and Predictive Analytics
The author does explain some R basics, just enough to get you through excersises in the book. However, you'll feel more comfortable after this compact intro to R: Impatient R (. And don't forget to install R Studio Desktop, it's more convenient than R's native console.
After seeing all the details in Lantz's book, you might want to get a higher level overview (only 9 pages):
Pedro Domingos - A Few Useful Things to Know about Machine Learning (
Should you have plenty of time, udacity has a nice free ML course.
When reading about out-of-sample testing, keep in mind that time series have their own tricks. Be sure to check Prof. Hyndman's ( free ebook on time series prediction. In short - ten-fold is great, but peeking into future is a no-no. That's why walk forward analysis.