Amateur here, but the book says that you should add compost as you remove/harvest plants. I'd think you could amend each square as you go with different kinds of compost and be fine.

I actually ended up using cow, mushroom and some homemade compost (not the full 5 Mel recommends)together with peat moss and vermiculite because that's all I could find. I plan to add more homemade compost as I go, which, I hope, will balance out any deficiencies.

I would also think adding different kinds of compost as you go should help. I am also starting out with one kind of compost (green waste the city composts) and will be adding homemade compost as I go for more variety. Good luck :)

Why is it you want to amend your amendment? I'm wondering if whatever problem you are seeing isn't caused by something else?

Not really clear on what problem you are trying solve?

But Consider using a compost tea!!!

I have had similar problems, even after managing a better (but not perfect) blend of composts. Cow, and other manure composts, provide Nitrogen, and not much of the other vital plant nutrients. Your radishes need bone-meal or another phosphate supplement to grow big, healthy, roots. You will need to supplement your plants with phosphorus (P) and potassium (K) at minimum to get most plants to grow well.

Plants also appreciate other things, like calcium, that come from composts with things like lobster and clam shells in them, the egg shells are also very good for this.

Here is a link that might be useful: Plant nutrient info.

Thanks for the advice. Last night I took out the peas, too late to hope for anything and I also removed the radishes. I took out my herbs and replanted after amending with some miracle gro garden soil I had around, grass clippings, garden tone and eggshells. Does that sound ok?

Andrea

so w/o a soil test how do you guess what is missing?

Well, I knew I needed to add more materials other than the cow compost, so I worked with what I had and am going after a test kit tomorrow. I was at Lowe's yesterday and they didn't have any.

Andrea.

Go out and find "Gardeners and Bloome Soil Building Compost"-its make by Kelloggs. This will help you dramatically with what you have in your soil now. There are many folks who go out and get manure and call it "compost." I dont think your alone in the results-as evidenced on this site. The great thing about the correct SFG is that you don't need to worry about pH, and you dont have to worry about adding bone meal, blood meal, etc. I would be careful with the coffee grounds as well. That stuff will turn your garden acidic very quickly. In small amounts it is excellent, along with all the other things your add to your compost. The tough part is that you spent at least $35 on part of the soil mix when you could have made Mels mix for probably $40 or maybe even slightly less....hang in there, you can fix it...