Vegetable garden soil

Hello. I have a 4x8 vegetable garden that receives full sun. 2 years ago, I added 20 bags of topsoil and 10 bags of manure. I'm not exactly sure the amount, but I know the manure was half. I received a lot of slack for this. Fortunately, my garden did well. This year, it is in need of some more of something. I would like to try and make it a little lighter, right now it's extremely hard. If there is already a thread about this, could someone point me in the right direction? Or help me determine what I need? Any help is appreciated. Thank you!

Have you done a soil test, you get them at the garden store for a couple of dollars, they are easy to do yourself and the results are quick and instructions easy,
This test will be good enough to tell you the PH of the soil what is required to improve it and you can adjust the PH by adding (GARDEN) lime, or other products to change the PH required, I believe animal manures are the best thing you can add to your garden be it for veg, flower growing, shrubs or whatever.

Animal manures add nutrients, allows air into the soil to make it lighter, it helps retain moisture without causing water logging and helps keep the soil sweet, the only animal manure to use is stuff that has been well rotter, say old as about year old, odour free and when you have it in your hand and rub it between your thumb and fingers it should crumble like a good compost.

each year after a successful harvesting of my veg plot I clear it out, use the spade and roughly turn the soil over, here in UK the winters are cold so I dont even break up the lumps of soil, I leave that for the frost to help break the soil us, from Jan to march IF the soil can be worked, I add a good 4-6 inches of well rotted animal manure, I just lay it on top and dont dig this in till a few weeks later, IF I am unable to get my hands on this much manure I add pelleted chicken manures and have to buy large containers of this but it also is good for flower beds ec t so it's not deadly cost wise but animal (horse) manure is usually free for the taking.
Depending on the type of veg you are growing, you can just grow in the manured (but well dug soil) but I find for root veg like carrots, parsnips ect, they dont like freshly manured soil, it appears to cause the roots to split, the carrots are good to eat but look like they have 2 legs, my kids used to think this hilarious but they tasted just as nice, the carrots not the kids ha, ha, ha.
the best way to avoid growing into freshly manured soil is to add the manure a couple of months before you start you veg seeds off it still does it's job of nutrient rich and air ect but seems to make the root veg behave better. When I was a child I was always told newly manured soil meant the carrots end parsnips didn't have to put there roots way down to reach for moisture or nutrients therefore they split by stunting there length, old wifes tale or what EH !!!!.

I suggest you test for what your soil requires, you have proved you have good soil from before after improvements, so the same could apply for this years crop.
Good luck and hope you have a bumper crop of goodies.
WeeNel.

I would add a lot more organic matter to the soil between each crop. As it decomposes organic matter does a lot of good things for the soil, but it does disappear. You need to keep adding it.

I would use a mix of products. Just using bagged manure is probably adding too much salt to the soil. Often this comes from beef feed lots, and the food fed to the cattle is pretty salty.

I add whatever I can get, and distribute it equally among all the beds. This past fall I got a lot of leaves, then I got a big load of chips from a tree trimming company. The finest chips went into the boxes, the coarser chips were spread between the boxes to keep the weeds down in the walkways.

I never use any beef, pig or any other manures as they do bring with them seeds from weeds as they graze, I have never seen bagged manure here in UK so cant comment on it, we just go to the closest stables where they are only too glad to have you take it away as in winter time most of the horses are inside here where I live, out in day time but inside at night.
Manure here is actually like gold to a gardener and it will never be used until it has been well rotted down as I mentioned, it should look like shop bought compost and NOT smell, but is better as regarding nutrients. the only type of other animal manure I use would be chicken manures, that is pelleted as to use chicken poo straight from the coup would cause burning to the plants and the roots as it would also contain very strong pea as the birds are couped over night so it is dried and made into pellets..
It is all a matter of taste and ready to lay your hands on, cost and even how you want to handle some garden products, I prefer to use what I grew up with while outdoors with my late Dad but everyone learns or adjusts to there own ways eventually.
Happy Gardening, WeeNel.