Healthy soil needs to breathe, be somewhat loose, and have good drainage.  Compacted soils do not let the air circulate to the root zone, but do allow too much water tu run off.  Loose soil releases water slowly and allows the roots of the plants to "breathe" and retain water. 

Basically there are 5 kinds of soil:  Clay, Sand, Loam, Limestone and Peat.

No matter what kind of soil you start with, you must add fertilizers, compost, soil conditioners and animal manures to create a soil that has lots of organic material, nutrients, a fine grain and air space.  Good plant food consists primarily on Nitrogen that promotes green leafy growth, Phosphorus that promotes root and fruit growth, Potassium promotes overall plant strength.  Compost added to sandy soils improves the water holding capacity of the soil, and improves plant growth.

We suggest that if you don't want to use the hand digging method, you buy organic fertilizer, compost, soil conditioners, and horse manure in bags from your local nursery.  After years of putting garden beds together from scratch, buying prepackaged ingredients seems so much easier.  This is especially important if you are short on time and patience.

The Postage Stamp Intensive Method helps you achieve super fertilization.  In the general hand method covered here you achieve a partial layering of the nutrients and a very fertile top soil  Here's how it goes:

     1.   For heavy clay soil, cover the entire bed 6 to 8 inches with a mixture of 1/2 compost and 1/2 sand.  For sandy soils you cover the bed 4 to 5 inches of pure compost.  You primarily want to wind up with the soil composition of 1/3 compost, 1/3 sand, then 1/3 other soil ingredients.  Therefore adjust your addition of compost and sand to meet the needs of your own soil, whether clay or sand or something inbetween.  Just estimate.

     2.   Start in one side of the bed and dig a trench along the entire side.  Put the excavated top soil aside where you can get it later.

     3.   Loosen the subsoil in the trench you've just created one spade depth more.   Make sure the subsoil is loose, but not fine.

      4.   Remove one spade depth of top soil (including the compost-sand mix from the strip of bed directly beside the trench and fill-in the first trench.  Make sure that you mix the top soil and compost-sand mixture well in the trench that you are now filling up.

     5.   You now have a new trench next to the original one that you just filled up.  As before, loosen the subsoil in this trench with the top soil and use compost mix from the adjacent strip.

     6.  In the same manner dig one trench after the other across the width of your bed until you finish the entire bed.  After you've worked trench by trench and reached the very last row of your garden, take the top soil/compost mixture that you left aside originally and fill in the last trench.

     7.  Let the soil surface stay rough for a few days so that air can get into the soil and using a spade and rake work the top soil to a fine texture.  Make sure you break up all the dirt clods.

     8.  Over the entire surface spread about 2 inches of rotted manure and the organic fertilizer containing nitrogen, potassium and potash, according to the instructions on the sack.  Work these ingredients into the top 5 to 6 inches of top soil and rake smooth.


Rototilling

Most women don't like the idea of having to dig up a bed with a shovel...it's back breaking work.  Duane developed this method and works almost as well to make it easier.  Even if you intend to use a shovel it is still a good idea to rototill your bed the first year and in subsequent years the soil will be looser and you won't need to rely on rototilling.  Here is a procedure:

     1.  Rototill your bed at least 1 foot deep.

     2.  If you have clay soil, use a spade or spading fork to turn sand and compost into the soil until your bed consist of 1/3 sand and 1/3 original soil.  For sandy soils turn compost into your bed until you have 1/2 to 1/3 compost, the rest original soil.  For in-between soils just estimate how much you'llneed of one thing or another in order to wind up with a mixture that consists of at least 1/3 compost that is loose and fairly fine and has good air space, and easy to work.  While preparing the soil you'll want to remove all the rocks you find.

     3.  Level the bed with a rake.

     4.  Over the entire bed spread a 2 inch layer of rotted manure, add the organic fertilizer according to the instructions on package.  Rake the top portion of the soil to a light texture.