You cannot assume your soil is not very good, the only way to know short of planting things and watching them die because of lack of nutrients is with a good, reliable soil test. Contact your local Oklahoma State University USDA Cooperative Extension Service office about that soil test. Packing material into the compost bins is not a real good idea since that can limit the ability of the bacteria that will digest that material to get the air they need to function well, too much water in the mix will do the same thing.
The leftover veggies from your kitchen are a source of Nitrogen, most are probably in the C:N range of 12:1 based on many tests done. But cattle manure, sheep manure, goat manure, poultry manure can all be used as a Nitrogen source if available. But you might be surprised that your material will get digested anyway, the bacteria may just take more time.
Adding soil to compost will not do any harm and does little good. Once people thought that soil was necessary to add the bacteria that would digest that material, but today we know that all organic matter has the bacteria to digest it on it and adding soil is unnecessary.

Here is a link that might be useful: Oklahoma CES

Thanks. Although I'm not sure it was clear that my big standing beds are *containers* -- they are not in touch with the ground, aside from black landscaper mat at the bottom for some drainage (though I seriously doubt water gets that far most the time). I rather assume that any soil in a container that gets used for fruiting plants and not amended in any way, and that is noticeably compacted after years, probably needs a little something. Was just hoping to 'hurry up' some composting so maybe I'd have something to add from that source before the spring plantings.

I think big weeds mean good soil. I hope so. When I bought this place the weeds went up to my chest. Can you imagine dandelion type and thistles super duper tall! I had never seen em that big. Later I found out from a neighbor there were rabbits under that tree.

"Weeds" do indicate many things, most often soil nutrient problems if one reads them correctly.

Weeds don't necessarily mean the soil is bad. Weeds are just plants after all, just plants we don't happen to like. But still plants, needing decent soil. Some particular weeds will mean some particular thing about the soil, but nothing can be inferred from just 'weeds' in general, unless even weeds won't grow - then your soil is bad bad bad.

For instance, stinging nettle means the soil is very rich and holds water well - ideal gardening soil. While alkali mallow means, you guessed it, your soil is very alkaline. Scotch broom means you have disturbed soil that is deficient in nitrogen. Lawn daisies and creeping ranunculus mean compacted, poorly draining soil. Moss means acidic soil. Dandelions and sow thistles mean good soil. Dallis grass means poor dry soil.

Adding soil to compost makes the compost very heavy and difficult to turn and to spread. I wouldn't do it for those reasons.

Weeds that died in place, and then were added to the compost, are browns. Weeds that were pulled while green are greens even if they dry up before being added to the compost.

Now about your beds which are actually containers - were they filled with potting soil? or topsoil and mushroom compost? I'm confused. Potting soil does need to be renewed every couple years as there is no mineral component in most potting soils, it's all bark and peat and stuff that breaks down over time. But I think in either case, if it's these containers that are full of weeds, rather than dig out all the 'soil', whichever kind of soil it is, I'd just remove the top layer with the weeds, compost that, and add compost purchased from elsewhere to refill and renew the beds. It should not be necessary to remove all the soil unless you have drainage problems.

In place of true greens, you can add nitrogen fertilizer to your compost to get things going. Lawn fertilizer without any weed control stuff, ammonium nitrate, blood meal, alfalfa meal, fish meal, alfalfa pellets - anything like that.

Good luck on your gardening project!

Thank you for the many helpful posts here.

My beds were filled with 'topsoil' to about 12" below the bed line, and then the remaining 12"+ was filled with mushroom plant compost. Every year except last year, as the beds reduce (of course, esp. with much of them being compost), I have another half-load of compost delivered, which adds anywhere from 8-12" of compost to the top of all the beds, plus I refill all my big containers, and stick the rest in a rolling lidded trashcan where I keep extra soil to use as needed.

Last year I did not garden at all. From the September before, nothing was done at all. So a lot of stuff stayed as dead when winter hit, then quite a bit of stuff reseeded come spring, so the bed all year was filled with the mix of dead stuff from the previous season and live stuff from the current year, plus weeds from being ignored. Now, all of that together is dead.

My intent just like directed at last, there -- I am gradually digging out the top of the beds and containers where the weeds and their main roots are (bearing in mind, for all I know half these 'weeds' were fruiting plants at one time), and tossing those in one of my 3 compost bins, leaving the others for real compost (thanks for that advice). In the buckets, all of which were destroyed by the horrid freeze we had awhile ago (everything cracked or shattered depending on its material), I dig out the bottom part of the soil, which looks surprisingly good to me though I haven't Ph tested it, and I put it in my good-soil-bin for now.

Once I finish all the buckets (I have 9x 32-gal ones and 6x 21-gal ones to dig out and it's slow going frankly, given everything is nearly frozen, but I'm working on it!), then I will do the beds. THEN I have to add new soil or something. I don't mean the whole beds need new soil, I mean like the top 12" or so of everything (beds, big-containers, pots).

So I was thinking, since I already 'have' soil, that a 'soilless mix' seems sorta pointless.

On the other hand, surely having about 12" of 'soilless mix' on the top, with 12" of soil underneath, probably isn't going to hurt anything, I hope.

One thing I wondered is, if I add a soilless mix to the top (I'm looking at something like Al's recipe), with pine bark fines + perlite + spaghum peat, the fact that in some respect this could end up mixing with some of the soil as I put it in, would this be a problem?

I heard someone say somewhere that mixing soilless and soil mixes, depending on their makeup, could result in something rather like mud-cement LOL.

I don't know that I can afford enough of the ingredients for Al's mix to actually handle all my beds and major containers and planters. I'd like to but it is sort of unlikely.

So I was wondering if getting more compost -- either mushroom compost again, or some from my own bins (hence my question about how to deal with the green/brown and breakdown more quickly), to mix in with that, would be more practical in the end.

I would go for the mushroom compost, especially if it has some topsoil in it, and forget about the soilless mixes. The problem comes when you plant something in one kind of soil -- in this case a very loose, soilless mixture-- and eventually the roots make it down to the next layer, which is MUCH more compacted. It's my understanding they have difficulty with that transition and tend to spread out as opposed to going down, which isn't good if they need water in a drought kind of situation. You need to think about topping it off with something that is more like the base it will cover. At least that's what I would do.
MacThayer

The color of the material going into your compost has nothing to do with whether it is green or brown. Materials that are high in protein (including coffee grounds, wheat flour, corn meal, and alfalfa) are green. Materials that are low in protein (most tree leaves, sawdust, most kitchen waste) are brown.

Soil only goes bad when the microbes living in it die. The worst thing you described was the plastic in the garden. That would be my first priority. Next would be to mow the weeds down. Then fertilize at a rate of 10-20 pounds per 1,000 square feet with any organic fertilizer. Finally cover with mulch (your leaves would be perfect). Then moisten that and don't let it dry out all winter. In the spring your soil should be considerably improved at a cost of a little organic fertilizer and the time it takes to get rid of the plastic.

Thanks for the input.

I'm trying to figure out where the plastic comment comes from though. I can't remember or find any mention of plastic. The only plastic in my garden is former containers that have cracked and I'm replacing. It IS very late at night though so maybe sleep deprivation is affecting me ...

...the middle is a big area of landscaper blackmat

Is this "blackmat" not plastic? If not, what is it?

Hi,

Underneath the 24-32" high cinderblock beds, there is black landscaper mat and hardware cloth (so they are separated from the soil, they are containers).

In the middle of the garden-area, where I am NOT planting but the area where I walk between the beds, tubs, arbor and trellises, there is black landscaper mat and mulch over that.

The mat is a woven product that allows water through but not weeds. It might have some polymer something in the fabric, but it's not plastic. I've considered using it this year as a mulch (and planting 'through' holes in it) in the main beds.

I have it in the front yard in the landscaped areas; it will pass water from the hose, rain or the soakerhose through it, but does ok at preventing weeds.

Best,
PJ