Hi I have been preparing my vegetable garden for planting my vegies, I have tilled the soil ,added black earth soil,and compost.still the soil seems to harden. Any suggestions on what I should do to help keep the soil softer? Thanks to all

I'm an amateur with this and I have the same problem. I just found on the net lots of info about Four Square Gardening. There's a good "recipe" for mixing soil that stays friable. Mix 4/5 different composts to form your "compost." Mix that with equal amounts of coarse vermiculite and peat. It's called "Mel's Mix." I've just created my "batch." Hope it works!

Although you have added compost, I am fairly sure you haven't added enough to loosen your soil. Adding other topsoil won't help much either unless you add a very large amount. I had an area of subsoil (from the basement of our house) that I wanted to make into a garden. Weeds wouldn't even grow very well before I "fixed" it.

I added new, uncomposted sawdust 8"-10" deep over the entire area and tilled it in using several passes with my Troybilt tiller. I also added urea nitrogen at an enormous rate of about 1500 lbs/acre to assist with the decomposition of the sawdust. That area is one of the better gardens that I have now.

I only used sawdust because I have access to as many tons of it as I want. Any type of organic matter will work.