My gut says your garden dirt is probably in good shape. The "lazy" approach would be to simply dig a couple holes where you will put your plants and see what the dirt looks like. So long as it looks fairly normal (not too much clay and not too much sand) you'll probably be just fine. A soil test isn't too difficult or expensive, but lots of folks have had great results without them. Another thing to do is to amend just your planting area instead of the entire garden. Most of the time, I will just dig a hole large enough for the roots of the plant I'm planting and add some soil/compost to the hole and put my plant in that amended area. IMHO, the best "mineral and such" for your garden is going to be compost. You can probably find bags at all the garden centers. Finally, the thing you need to be careful about during this time of year is to pay attention to the frost date in your area. It's real easy to catch spring fever and jump the gun on those early warm days only to have a bit of frost come and kill your young plants. Working in the dirt and weeding is fine, but be careful about putting plants out.

Any chance you can just lasagne it over with a layer of newspaper, some new soil, and mulch, and then plant into that now or in spring? You may be able to do without either chemical. Others here do use them though and may be able to advise whether to plant before or after the pre-emergent. Don't know your zone, so don't know the ins and outs of spring vs fall planting. KarinL

Well, today I took the plunge and brought in my jasmine, hibiscus, and my citrus trees. I still have my miniature roses outside. I was hoping to finish my greenhouse and then I would be able to put my mini roses in there. I can't believe how quickly this summer has flown by. I still have roses, russian sage, echinacea, aster and mums blooming in my gardens. They look so beautiful that I hate to see them end. I still have not finished my mulching. I hope I get some time to do that before it begins to snow. I purchased some more lilies asiatic, orental and trumpets, they arrived this week. Tomorrow I will get them planted. I will use my compost and mix it in the hole when planting them and that should be it for this year. My pond has been cleaned of all the lily pads and various other plants. I always place a floating stock heater into the pond which creates a small hole in the ice and a small pump which provides the needed oxygen for the fish. Tomorrow I will take in the hoses and that is a sure sign the gardening year is over!

Vgkg - Red clover as a cover crop…good idea and it’s pretty too and helps out the bees. I’ve used cover crops before, but not in awhile. In the past, I’ve tried a 3 seed combo from Fedco that had oats, hairy vetch and field peas. I’ve also thought about trying a tilage radish. I have 5 long raised beds, maybe I might experiment with diff cover crops in some beds. ~~~~~~ Dan - Thanks for confirming that the nitrogen gets applied in the spring if you are going to use it. I wonder if you recommend an amendment for adding nitrogen, or will the cover crop do the trick? The 6.2pH - I think that’s why I didn’t bother adding the Lime, but I thought I’d try a little this fall. Every season we usually mulch with grass clippings and leaves we saved from the previous fall until they run out. And I usually bury kitchen scraps along the edges or empty spaces in my bed over the summer. I didn’t do that this year though, so I need to make up for it this fall. Some seasons, I have used cover crops and turned them in, when I grow peas, I usually turn those into the soil. Sometimes I buy Coast of Maine compost and add a thin layer to the top of the beds before planting. So that is probably where I am getting the organic matter. And I don't use fresh manure. ~~~~~~~~ Rodney, I’m wondering if the way I add organic material and turn in cover crops, and chopped leaves, might be using too much of the nitrogen in the beds. I don’t usually add a source of nitrogen with that. What would be an organic amendment for nitrogen I could add to help break down the organic material? I don’t always have enough grass clippings either, having a small lawn. I’ve been using organic alfalfa meal around my roses, twice a season with nice results, so I did add that to the vegetable beds this spring, because I had it in the house and couldn’t make up my mind what else to use. I’ve wondered about growing it as a cover crop and using it to make alfalfa tea. ~~~~~~ I’ve really neglected the vegetable garden this year, having a lot of landscape work to get done, heavy pruning of shrubs, etc., so I’m basically trying to make up for what I didn’t do all season.