Starting gardening !

I have very hard soil in my garden and want to start a vegetable patch. Do I need to add more soil on top and dig some of hard soil out ??? I am new to this and appreciate some guidelines or some useful websites.

Is it hard because it's been packed down by traffic, or is it clay-type soil?

There are different methods. You can mix some kind of amendment into the soil to improve its texture, or you can just pile a lot of good soil on top.

You could also consider building raised beds, that way you don't have to worry about your hard soil at all, you can fill it in with good dirt.

Depends on where you're at and what you've got. Do you mean "hard" as in stoney or rocky, or just packed in topsoil? Hard topsoil usually just needs a good turnover with a power tiller, possibly adding in a bale of peat moss to soften the soil. If you have tree leaves in the fall, mulch them up with a mower and till into your garden bed. This will soften up the hardest of topsoils. If you have really stoney unworkable soil, consider using a raised bed system with hauled in topsoil. Hope this helps, good luck!

Also, for hard soil (like clay) when you till it and plant it this year, mulch heavily (I use wheat straw, NOT hay as it will have lots of Bermuda seeds in it). After your garden is done for this year, you can till the wheat straw in and it will add organic matter that will help to soften up your soil. Each year you do this your soil will get better. And, as lycodad said, the addition of tree leaves helps a lot too.

I vote for the raised beds. I just love mine never had them until last spring, on my clay hard soil.

I agree with the raised beds. I have a 16 by 18 potager style garden that is almost completely raised bed (no borders just piles of soil) and it's worked great for us. It takes a lot of good soil to amend bad soil so you might as well just pile it on top. I'd still dig and turn the soil first though if possible.

If it's just packed soil from walking...but good soil...then you'll just need to till it and add some good compost.

How I started a vegetable garden from rock and clay: I had access to some spoiled hay from a farmer, but it can be done with fall leaves and grass clippings. I just piled the stuff up as thick as I could, using all the material I had, in a rectangle where I wanted my first garden to be. It sat there all winter, partially killing the sod underneath in the fall and preventing it's growing again in the spring. (Cold Wisconsin!) At planting time* I just pulled the mulch aside in either a narrow row, or a square foot area, dug out the (dead?) sod square or strip and put some compost (from a bag) in the square or strip, and planted the veggie plant or seed. I then surrounded the plant with a circle of newspaper-hole in center for plant of course- at least 4 pages thick- and pulled the mulch back over to keep the paper from blowing away. I added whatever mulch I had access to (NOT wood chips) all the time around the plants and between them, all summer. Some weeds came up (hay is noted for this--straw would be better but I had no access to straw) but they seemed to be single leafy weeds easily pulled out. I vow--No hoeing for me! That's it. I had a great crop of tomatoes, peppers, a row of onions and a row of beans. I considered it a success for the first year on rock and clay of reclaimed hayfield, where we had built a new home. Each year more mulch gets piled on (surprising how the ground has softened and gotten better with just mulch decomposing continually and the earthworms that moved in. I have added to my garden space this same way. I have planted seed potatoes in just squares of ground where the sod was removed, adding a couple handfuls of compost, laying the seed potato on top of the ground and covering with mulch and then just continuing to pile mulch up around the potato plant as it grows. You don't dig the potato crop--you UNCOVER it!

Ruth Stout is my hero! Find her book and read it.

I will always remember a statement I saw somewhere in a very old issue of a gardening magazine, "You can grow vegetables on a concrete slab, if you have enough mulch."

These gardens are not pristine and regimented. Neat freaks may want to spend big bucks on a tiller and an assortment of hoes, not to mention watering that fluffed soil that will dry out very quickly. I prefer to eat veggies and fruits, not impress the neighbors.

*Thickly mulched garden beds don't warm up as fast in spring. Don't plant too early or SOME plants will not grow at first or seeds not sprout. I suppose you can spread black plastic over the garden patch to let the sun warm it up, but I never have.