Top Dressing Small Vegetable Garden

I started a small, 5'x10' roughly, vegetable garden this spring. Turned in several bags of compost with the soil (heavy on the red-clay side) before I planted. Got tomatoes, bell pepper, squash & zucchini planted.

Plants are doing well so far, just been reading some folks talk about top dressing with manure or mulch. Thought I'd come here for some opinions or tips to make the most out of my harvest this summer. What y'all think?

I'd just spray some fish emolishion on it and pack pine straw around them.

If you have a mostly clay base, it would be to your benefit to mulch around and pine straw is an excellent mulch around the plants and organic matter [leaves, mulch etc.] will greatly benefit your garden spot. Don't know what you fed your garden spot with but a good dose of fertilizer is always a benefit. If nothing else, Miracle Grow is always good.

Some people think that adding sand to clay soil will open it up. I've found that adding sand to clay creates a low grade concrete and most plants don't do well with this hardened soil.

Clay soil will change by adding in large amounts of organic matter. If you do add in some sand, add in large amounts of organic matter with the sand. Peat moss is also really good for your garden. Don’t pay too much for the peat moss go for the free organic stuff.

Any soil can be converted into an ideal, open, loamy, aerated soil. This improved soil will retain water and nutrients that are readily available for healthy plant growth.

Deep plowing every few years will break up the hard pan in clay soils and improve water drainage.

Thanks Maggie. I second what you say about adding sand to clay. I actually used a mixture of the clay and sand to lock in some landscaping timbers around an extended patio I just finished with some pavers. Once it set like concrete I determined that was probably not the thing to add into my garden lol!

I did add the black mushroom compost as I double-dug the garden bed to get started. Using miracle gro to fertilize as well. Looks like some pine straw is in order now