Really, compost helps every kind of soil as does well rotted manure. Putting compost down and then mulching does wonders. You‘re off to a great start! When we moved, we had really bad orange clay soil. After three years of putting compost and then mulch, the soil is now lovely, dark and rich with lots of worms, to about 5 inches. There’s still clay underneath, but every year the good layer goes deeper.

If your soil is crappy, yes, it needs to be improved. For the veggie garden, if you add compost regularly, you've done well. But you should be digging in at least a cubic foot of compost (a few shovelfuls) to every yard of soil. That is, a little sprinkle of compost isn't going to count for much. Be advised that as organics degrade in the soil, they disappear. Poof! So you need to do it regularly. Compost application isn't a once-is-enough deal.

With regard to manure, best that it be composted first. Or dig it in and wait a few months. Adding raw manure to a growing garden can poison plants with ammonia, and is generally not a healthy thing to do with regard to human pathogenic bacteria.

A lot depends on the soil. If it has good texture and drainage, then you want to maintain fertility. Plants will do OK for a while in soil that is not replenished, but eventually it all peters out. Lots of compost, rotted manure, and other organics. I find them far better for plants. Other fertilizers are OK in the short term, but they don't build long term plant or soil health, in my experience. Commercial bagged compost not worth much IMHO. Bagged aged manure ok, but expensive for what it is . . .

Well, if the OP was considering joining, that kind of post will certainly shy them away. And magazines are fine, but garden chatting is how I learned most of what I know, particularly about non-textbook situations. That and trial and error. Magazines give the ideas, but everyone's situation is different. Just like I've learned the most about my profession from discussions with peers, even though I read a lot and had entire classes on some subjects.

Neither of the previous two comments from Jim are helpful or particularly polite!! Might you be constipated, Jim?? That is our family's explanation for uncalled-for or unnecessarily grouchy and unhelpful comments :-)

Local garden centers seldom have anyone on staff that is that familiar with soil conditions and soil improvement unless they have a horticulturist on staff. Rare in most retail nurseries :-) They are in the business of selling plants and related gardening products so the more they sell - whether you need it or not - the happier they will be!! They can talk a novice gardener into all sort of amendments, fertilizers, tonics and snake oil that will have little to no impact on soil improvement.

The first responses from Grace and dan address the topic accurately, Add organic matter in the form of compost or composted (or very well aged) manures. If you do that repeatedly each year, you will have a great and productive garden!

OK, deleting.

Not the soil, but here it is .... :)

• Add a banana peel to a clean jar.
• Fill the jar with water and put the lid on it.
• Let the concoction sit for a week to two weeks, then remove and discard the banana peel.
• Dilute the finished fertilizer with water in a 1:4 ratio.

In the olden days, the local nurseries In California employed “certified nerserymen”. Required a 2 yr degree.

Maybe because of the internet, local nurseries do not employ certified nursery men.

LOL!! There is NO degree required to be a "certified nurseryman" in California or anywhere else!! All one has to do is be employed in the industry for a specific length of time and then pass a test. To maintain the certification there are usually some ongoing continuing education credits that must be achieved but a degree is not part of the requirements.

Laugh all you want....I knew several (I can name 4 individuals) people who were “ certified ca nurseryman “ and they had degrees, and let me know they had degrees.

There were 2 and 4 year programs at the college level.

This was in the 70’s-80’s.

They may very well have had a degree - I have one myself - but a degree is NOT a requirement for certification!! Check out the Plant California Alliance - they are the governing professional body.

I was told, in CA, in the 70’s, one had to have a 2 yr college degree with appropriate courses and pass a state test. Cal Poly San Luis and Evergreen offered certifications. Perhaps, your college‘s Ag program also offered certifications if your state required them.

I knew two Gardner’s who touted their certificates, a salesman for a wholesaler and the guy at the local nursery.

Well, what was common 50 years ago has little relevance now. Most folks with a horticultural degree are not inclined to be a nursery worker unless specializing in propagation or hybridizing as nursery work is not known for its high rate of pay. And you rarely find those positions at a retail garden center. Why work for what is usually not much more than minimum wage after going to all the time and expense to get a college degree?

Often, people are on the internet requesting plant advice. I remember when one could find local information and plants from the family owned nursery.

I would like to direct people to local nurseries, those nurseries in CA whose employees are CA Cerfified.

Titling at Windmills?

Probably :-) The usefulness of a certified nursey professional was arguably more significant in the days before the Internet but there is not much one can't discover nowadays by looking online. This website is one of the better sources - that is the whole purpose behind GardenWeb: providing plant advice - but there are scores of other sites as well.

Also the numbers of 'family owned' nurseries have declined dramatically since the 70's and seems to be ramping up rather than down.

For annuals I would add compost or well composted manure, but don't know what triple mix is. Seems simpler to me to add it by the inch. For raw clay I'd suggest spreading 3 inches of manure assuming you don't have enough home made compost and then dig it in. I spread 2 inches and dig and then another inch and dig again to break up the clumps of clay. Repeat that the 2nd year for raw clay. If you have rich black loam I'd suggest an inch of manure every 5 years. If you add manure you shouldn't need any other fertilizer. Between the raw clay and rich black adjust as necessary.

For perennials since you can't dig it in you should mulch with compost, hardwood bark, manure, or if available in your area bulk mushroom compost. I would never suggest bagged products as there's no telling what they put in those bags. Don't spread wood chips around any structrure because of the attraction it has for termites.

Be advised that manure and compost are almost the same thing. The organics that get eaten largely get composted in the digestive system. But what manure has that compost doesn't is urea, and the urea nitrogenates the soil. But as noted, it does so by releasing ammonia, and you don't want to ask the plants to tolerate that ammonia. So if you dig in uncomposted fresh manure, wait a while before planting. Then again, manure can also have human pathogens, so be careful.

The way you describe it, they sure sound pretty different.

I suggested "well composted manure"; which doesn't have an ammonia problem. In my opinion the main difference between compost and manure is that with manure you can go load up as big a truck as you can find, load and drive.

Pellet type manure can be used right away (rabbit, goat, deer, llama, sheep). Others are considered HOT (horse, cow, chicken) and will burn your plants if not composted for a time.

My city collects organics from people (along with the trash and recycling service), and hot composts it all. I can get a huge truck and load up on all the compost I want. The piles are a block long and thirty feet high. Much more available than what comes out of any nearby farm. I can get VASTLY more compost than I can manure. Of course, then there are the city biosolids, but they charge a little for that. Yeah, that's composted manure, I guess.

Back to the original question: @hu-etc - do you think your soil needs to be improved? Why? What signs are you seeing it needs to be improved?

For the veggie garden, you've basically been doing what most would say (more or less) to improve the soil, adding some compost etc from time to time. For the flower garden, you haven't been doing much - you could add some compost, whether plain compost or composted manure.

If your flowers are doing fine, maybe you don't need to do anything - but mulching with some compost won't hurt and will help the soil in the long term.

Again, if you're not having any particular problem and are mostly happy with what you have, no particular steps are needed like digging it in. (And of course if you have perennials that come back each year, you may not want to disturb them).

Adding compost periodically as a mulch will not hurt and will help the soil over long term. You can add whenever you want if you're not burying the plants; in your climate, a few inches deep in the fall is a good time.

I think the 'triple mix' is just a typical so-called gardening soil with 'compost', peat moss and loam. Nothing wrong with that I guess but if you're just mulching your existing beds and the soil there is mostly okay, mulching with compost will be fine. No need to get any particular compost, whatever's convenient and not overpriced; i think Toronto has free municipal compost from yard waste/leaves, that should be fine. As a mulch it would also be fine to use less-composted mulch like woodchips as well.

Compost will have the main nutrients that would be in more concentrated fertilizers in lesser amounts - I wouldn't add fertilizer at all in your case unless you identify what's needed (i.e. if you have any specific nutrient deficiencies). I'm not saying anything wrong with composted manure, but if you have access to free compost (and presumably manure not readily available in the city except for cash), the compost will be fine.

With regard to manure and compost being basically the same thing, to the extent their primary purpose is adding organics to the soil, they both do it equally well. With regard to nitrogen, well composted manure has little more than vegetative compost. But, as I said, FRESH manure has lots more nitrogen, but until it is nitrified in the soil and available for plant use, it is in the form of ammonia.

As noted, it sounds like you're basically doing what needs to be done for your vegetable garden, IF you're adding enough compost. Assuming that the soil is friable and drains well, if you want to improve the soil, you need to get the soil tested, and find out what it might need, chemically. You may be aware that the City of Toronto has specific advice about how to do that.

https://www.toronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/96a1-FromtheGroundUp_Guide-Soil-TestingOct2013.pdf

I would recommend a very basic set of tests. N, P, K, Ca, Mg, S, Na. You can test for a lot more, but you'll pay a lot to have it done.

I should add that if you have neighbors who have had their soil tested, just ask them. Your problems won't be much different than theirs, with the caveat that adding a lot of compost over the years will increase many nutrients.

My Soil is Crap! Or is it?

One of the most defining chemical qualities of soil for gardeners is nutrient content. Minerals or elements in soils are highly variable based on soil age, their formation processes and the parent material from which they developed. Fine textured soils have more mineral nutrients and storage capacity than coarse textured soils. Sands tend to be hungry for plant nutrients and clays are usually rich in nutrients. This is because as particle size decreases the electrical properties of soil become more negative in charge and tend to retain positively charged mineral nutrients. You can estimate nutrient content by seeing how plants grow in a given soil without fertilization. If weeds are abundant and happy, the soil may contain adequate amounts of the 18 different elements necessary for plant growth. The only way to accurately know the nutrient content of a soil is to have it analyzed in a soils lab

https://gardenprofessors.com/my-soil-is-crap/

The best way to know if your soil needs amending is to have the soil tested. You can also check to see if it's more clay like or sandy by squeezing some moist soil in your hand. Also observe your plants for nutrient deficiency. The people on this forum are from all different parts of the world and we have different native soils, hence the different advice. https://ag.umass.edu/services/soil-plant-nutrient-testing-laboratory

The OP wanted to know how to best improve the soil. Saying, gee, you probably don't need to do it, simply isn't answering the question that was posed. At this point, the right way to improve the soil, if you really want to do it, is to get the soil tested. The Toronto brochure does make the point that they don't do that testing, but recommends reaching out to independent labs. Easy to get such a list. True that they are mostly concerned with hazardous contaminants, but the same advice applies to nutrients.

The original question was "Wondering how to best improve the soil - and is it truly necessary?" Saying "why do you think you need to?" is an entirely appropriate response. Not everyone needs to test their soil (although fine if they want to) - depends what they want to do. If you want to maximize your soybean yield, definitely; if your peonies are doing fine, it's actually not a requirement - pace internet pundits who want to lecture about "the right way."

Whether it is truly necessary to improve your soil really isn't a question that can be answered in a gardening forum. Might as well ask us whether you should cut your toenails. I don't have any insight into your soil quality, nor what is happening with your plants. But a question about how to improve it is a specific one, and it has a specific answer.

I think adding compost, sheep manure and whatever triple mix is are probably very good additions. Thanks to wet springs I think my vegetable garden went two years without a spring addition of composted manure. My garden was ok but not great. One year I planted spinach early (zone 5) before we added the composted manure. It looked like it did fine but I also made a second planting after manure was added and the same seeds grew much bigger plants. No Till farming/gardening seems to be a current topic and from what I understand the most important thing to add every year is organic matter. Massachusetts NOFA did some weekly free zoom lectures in their Resilent Gardener series. I think one of my big mistakes has been leaving the ground mostly bare after harvest (which the weeds love) so last year it got chopped maple leaves except where I was using a straw mulch. The Mass NOFA lectures are on YouTube if you look under mass nofa resilient garden series.

It is often mistakenly believed that adding organics to soil can be a once-and-you're-done deal. What we need to remember is that even after composting, organics degrade in the soil. The chemistry of organic degradation is pretty complex, but basically the carbon oxidizes and, poof, CO2. So organics GO AWAY. Yearly amendation with organics is the way to go. If you have dense clay soil, and you fluff it up with organics, a few years later you're going to have dense clay soil again. Adding organics isn't a permanent fix.

Up-front, I'll state clearly that yearly mulching is a good thing and a good way to maintain and build healthy soil.

But: "once-and-done" when used here and in this context is commonly (or at least often enough) used to refer to a different approach than frequent eg annually tilling. Not exactly no-till, 'once and done' is low till - i.e. recognising that some soil might be in bad shape to start with and could really use being loosened up / dug up once and organic matter added to the mix to amend. In other words, the 'once and done' refers only to the tilling; just about everyone who suggests this approach would ALSO suggest good soil building practice of mulching every year.

And while it's true that organic matter will degrade over time, it is not true that all organic carbon matter in soil oxidizes and is gone in just a few years. Organic carbon breaks down more quickly when exposed to air and the elements - one reason to not actively dig up or till frequently; in addition, there is soil carbon (like plant roots alive and dead) that was not part of the soil amending that tilling exposes, and can lead to even less carbon in soil being retained.

Carbon and other organic compounds further down - particularly lignins but many others (in initial or converted into other forms) - can be quite stable over long periods of time in the right conditions, even centuries - particularly when it becomes humus and other complex compounds (some of which will aggregate with clay particles and to some degree keep the soil from becoming as dense and compact). Then there is actually carbon/organic material added to soil as root growth - some of which can also be quite long-lasting and stable in the right conditions and form a big part of healthy soil. (Note that those 'right conditions' will often involve continual additions - natural or external - of new organic matter at the surface or by growth).

But yes - organic material does degrade over time, more when exposed to air and the elements, less quickly further down in soil, and all quite dependent on local conditions and 'use' of the soil (what's growing there and how it's handled, including tilling).

It's not true though that this means that it all disappears in a few short years, nor does it mean that 'amending' the soil yearly is necessarily the same thing as tilling in organic matter every year. Not doing so is a recognized garden and agricultural practice ("no till"), one benefit of which is losing less organic matter to decomposition / degradation, including disrupting soil life by tilling. "Once and done" is just a slight variation on that - and neither of them imply not retaining or adding organic matter on an ongoing basis.

Now, to each his own - if someone wants to till and add organic material every year or frequently, that's up to them. But both no till and 'once and done' can be valid approaches as well; I'm sure this was just a misunderstanding of what was meant by 'once and done' though - and neither of them would mean not amending eg mulching on an ongoing basis.

I know people who start a garden, and congratulate themselves that they've admended with compost, and now it's good to go. Years later, they're wondering why it wasn't as good as the first year.

No one said that all organic carbon oxidizes in a few years. So you took a lot of trouble trying to make that point, which I never said. But we've all seen compost piles shrink as they get older. I see it all the time in my hot climate.

No till is usually incorporated with heavy surface mulching. Mulch is understood as the key to low till. In no-till, organics ARE gradually replaced in the bed and, specifically, in the surface layer where the degradation happens fastest.

-I don't know anyone personally nor have ever read here who think 'amend once and never mulch' is the right way to go; can't speak to what the people you know think, but I don't think this is a persistent myth. "Once and done" is used in a specific sense of only tilling/digging in once (the done only refers to subsequent tilling); I can see how some might misapprehend.

-If I misunderstood what you meant when you wrote "but basically the carbon oxidizes and, poof, CO2. So organics GO AWAY", with a later mention of a few years, then my mistake. It read to me that you were suggesting that substantially all organic materials disappear in just a few years.

-I think I was quite clear that in low till (the sense of 'once and done' used here) and no till, mulching with organic materials is standard practice.