I'm glad that you're planning to add the lime, as in my experience, New England gardens usually need it. I support you in your "winging it" approach, though I advise caution as you proceed. Pay careful attention to your soil and your plants. A home test kit may or may not do anything useful for you (I've really heard horrible reviews of them). I'd suggest that you seriously consider putting in some sort of mild terracing along your slope, rather than just one wall at the end (unless you believe that one wall would allow you to level the whole thing...but then you're back to adding loads of material to fill it, so I'm guessing not?). I gardened on a slight slope last year, and had to go to some effort to create little berms at various points, so that the water would stay where I put it rather than running downhill all the time. I might suggest some of those "Windsor blocks" that they sell at Home Depot -- I've used them before with great success. They have other sorts of options, too. I garden organically, too. It can take a while to get your soil to where you want it to be, but I think it's well worth it. I like the amendments that you list, and think they'll serve you well. I also managed to find myself a great source of rabbit manure, which I think will prove to be a huge boon. For fertilizers, I've been using a combination of the Gardens Alive! dry fertilizers (available from their web site or catalog), and Neptune's Harvest fish and/or seaweed fertilizer. Since my garden is small (so far!), the last me a while. However, I'm hoping to build up my soil sufficiently with manure and compost and hay mulch that I won't need to buy any more of these after my current supplies are depleted. Only time will tell if this is realistic, but there are plenty of people on the Soil forum reporting that if you do what's needed for the soil, you eventually won't need fertilizers. I see you're in MA and in the city. Are you in the Boston area? If so, send me a private message if you'd like to chat about local stuff like manure sources, or anything else.

Ya, that weed fabric is a pain in the but! I just moved in a new house and had to pull tons of it out, while the people put a foot of soil on top of it! talk about pain in the butt! I have very heavy, heavy clay soil. I had very good results by placing newspaper and a sheet of cardboard on the existing grass, then piling compost and soil and made a 6" raised bed.. I didn't even till the soil.. I have great results and no weeds to pull.. If I was in your shoes, that's what I would do.. You wanted to till in wood mulch and leaves in the soil.. I would not do that.. Wood and leaves are high in carbon and it will use nitrogen fromthe soil to decompose.. Thus depriving you plants of nitrogen temporarily.. Think of it as a compost pile - you need the proper greens to browns(nitrogen/carbon).. Always leave the high carbon(leaves,woodchips,straw) on top of the soul as a mulch.. It will not tie up nitrogen in the soil because it is not mixed in the soil, and it can get nitrogen from the air.. Good luck, Joe

Definitely work it. You don't have to go too crazy; here is what I did for 20 tomato plants in a 10 ft x 20 ft area which yield about 800 heirloom tomatoes. For each plant: 1. Get a 6+ cubic foot wheel barrel, put a homemade "sifter" on top (basically 4 pieces of 2x6 each 3 foot long with 1/4" welded wire screen stapled heavily to it) 2. Get a couple of bales of peat moss and humus (buy the best you can) 3. Dig out ~20 inch diameter hole down to the clay. As you are digging, put each shovel thru the sifter into the wheelbarrel. After each shovel or two clean the "bad" out of the sifter and put in a shovel of peat and humus. 4. Continue digging until you have nice deep cylindrical hole. When you are done you will have a wheelbarrel full of nicely screened and improved soil (probably overfilling which you can deal with in various ways). 5. When the hole is done, just empty the wheelbarrel into the hole (it will now overfill the hole). Just mound it up the best you can. The hole will be nice and fluffy. Strive to keep it that way for the whole season. 6. Move to the next hole. It takes about an hour a hole once you get going. 7. Each year I try to dig the hole out again and add some more peat and humus. I put the tomatoe plants into the same hole each year.

g'day daleblack, better late than never maybe hey? but here goes. first questions (as i have never used brunning gypsum), was the gypsum of a moist talcum powder type consistancy? second if yor soil is like it sounds why fight it? use raised beds for all gardens, if you wanted to you could do a raised bed first where the trees are going then plant the trees in to rasied bed, the main thing with trees is their feeder roots need to be well drained the tap root will pretty much find its own way. so for trees that need good feeder root drainage you need to plant them into a raised position that is you dig a slight hole into your original soil throw some good quality gypsum in (usually the best stuff is bought at a produce agency) then create a mound to what ever height you need over and above that to plant the trees into (might be anywher up to 1/2 the heith of the current root ball?), this is necessary with citrus in those heavy soils so you may get some clues from researching planting citrus trees. len Here is a link that might be useful: len's garden page