I'm not sure about New England, but in Illinois it wasn't a great garden year. We had tons of moisture but not enough heat...it was a cool summer. Great for peas and broccoli, but not so good for maters and peppers.

My tomatoes produced several small green fruit, but most of them did not ripen on the vine.

Rocky clay?

Re-test the pH. Keep adding lime, a little at a time, every year.

Compost, or its derivatives, humic and fulvic acid, will modify the clay, make it friable and improve the availability of trace minerals. Compost will also serve as a weak fertilizer. At this point in the season, I would cover the soil with a mulch such as leaves shredded in the lawnmower, or with grass clippings. The soil needs to be protected all year 'round.

If you can find a local source of good compost, you should spread some of that on the top of the garden beds, and put mulch over that. In the spring, you can rake off the mulch, till the surface, and fertilize with an organic fertilizer. Cover with mulch until it is time to plant.

I would apply compost now instead of in the spring. I would suggest organic amendments instead of chemical amendments unless you have a serious deficiency of a particular element. Organic amendments help keep the soil in good condition.

When you plant peppers and tomatoes, throw a handful of bone meal into the planting hole.

I lived in Rockland County, NY and in Fairfield County, Conn. Rockland had stony soil, but the truck farmer that I picked tomatoes for had great crops. Fairfield County is a temperate rainforest. 50" of rain, more than Seattle. My sister there grows a lot of stuff in raised beds. She uses lots of compost and organic amendments.

If you have access to lots of material for compost, consider using the Interbay mulch technique.

(I lived across the street from the Interbay p-patch and had a garden bed there one year, but I was unaware of the 'Interbay mulch' technique at that time.)

You guys in the northeast had a pretty rainy year. Lots of complaints about the tomatoes being late.

Here is a link that might be useful: Interbay mulch

I was thinking the same thing. Our early summer was unusually cool, cloudy, and wet. How was your summer weather?

You also mentioned that that was a new garden in 2007. Had you grown things in that general area before that? Are you certain that it gets adequate sun for 'maters and peppers? Do you have other garden areas that perform better?

Karen

Only tomato and peppers? It was a cold wet year,your root and leafy vegetables Did they grow? Did you plant them every one or two weeks so they could grow with the weather. Miracle Grow "toxic" I am not in love with the stuff either,but I do use it and it works. Wish I had more help for you, we all have our bad years.The people on here will give you very good advice.

Curt:-)

Add lots of cured compost. Add manures in the fall.

Compost will build up humus creation and the essential soil organisms for nutrient cycling. A soil without organic matter is a dead soil. Being clay means nutrients are there and needs organic matter to free them. Organic matter will also improve the soil structure.

I add compost twice a year in large quantities and smaller side-dressings. Limit any cultivation to the upper 4-6" of the soil, let the organism spread the wealth to the depth without destruction of current soil strucutre. The raised beds should show a quick response.

When you applied the lime, and which lime, could have an affect on how things grew. If done shortly before planting the lime would not have had time to make any change in the soils pH and many nutrients would not be available to the plants. Lime, to have much affect on the soils pH, needs to be applied several months before that change is desired.
Contact your local office of your state universities USDA Cooperative Extension Service about having a good, reliable soil test done and also dig in with these simple soil tests,

1. Structure. From that soil sample put enough of the rest to make a 4 inch level in a clear 1 quart jar, with a tight fitting lid. Fill that jar with water and replace the lid, tightly. Shake the jar vigorously and then let it stand for 24 hours. Your soil will settle out according to soil particle size and weight. A good loam will have about 1-3/4 inch (about 45%) of sand on the bottom. about 1 inch (about 25%) of silt next, about 1 inch (25%) of clay above that, and about 1/4 inch (about 5%) of organic matter on the top.

2) Drainage. Dig a hole 1 foot square and 1 foot deep and fill that with water. After that water drains away refill the hole with more water and time how long it takes that to drain away. Anything less than 2 hours and your soil drains too quickly and needs more organic matter to slow that drainage down. Anything over 6 hours and the soil drains too slowly and needs lots of organic matter to speed it up.

3) Tilth. Take a handful of your slightly damp soil and squeeze it tightly. When the pressure is released the soil should hold together in that clump, but when poked with a finger that clump should fall apart.

4) Smell. What does your soil smell like? A pleasant, rich earthy odor? Putrid, offensive, repugnant odor? The more organic matter in your soil the more active the soil bacteria will be and the nicer your soil will smell.

5) Life. How many earthworms per shovel full were there? 5 or more indicates a pretty healthy soil. Fewer than 5, according to the Natural Resources Conservation Service, indicates a soil that is not healthy.
to see what your soil looks like and what you need to do to make that soil into a good, healthy soil.

Did you moisten the peat moss before adding it to your soil? I have read that peat moss that is not pre-moistened before incorporation will repel water.

And you don't have to use Miracle Grow if you don't want to. I don't. You can just decide that you are an organic gardener (if you want to) and do things the way organic gardeners do them---with compost, manures, and cover crops. Organic gardeners have reasonable solutions for every garden problem that arises. More compost usually is the answer for me here in my rocky, acid soil.

You didn't overapply the urea?

What color were the leaves on the pepper plants?

Where in New England? Its a big area...
I'm in north central MA and had the best year yet (we moved here in 2006). Whatever had been stunting my seeds seems to have finally washed out. I got great spinich, more swiss chard than we could eat, squash, peas, fantastic bush beans, beats, potatoes, tomatoes, and carrots that I just finished pulling this week.

I've got a pretty small garden, 2 4'x10' plots but I do have really good drainage, we're in "Paxton soil" which is sandy loam. Real clay gardens had a tough time this spring with all the rain we had.

A picture would probably tell the story better than a million words but I'd guess that maybe with all your peat moss you might not have a lot of available nitrogen and as the others have said the lime might not have had time to do its thing.
If you're in NH, VT or Maine you might find you have trouble with peppers. When I was living in Portland I never had peppers worth a hoot. If worst comes to worst spend a year growing peas and beans. They're EASY to grow and will build your confidence and improve your soil, tasty too.

I have some issues with the 'semi-raised' beds and believe they may be a part of your problem.

If you have rocky, clay soil that likely does not drain well to begin with, creating a bed that inserts down into that soil (and to a depth of 12"!) may just be creating additional complications. What you may have wound up creating is just a large bucket that holds excessive moisture, especially if this year you experienced a pretty wet spring and summer, which I understand a lot of the eastern half of the country did.

One of the primary advantages of raised bed gardening is to obviate poor soil conditions - i.e., the rocky, clayey, poor draining soil you started with. Sinking the bed into this type of soil eliminates any drainage benefits a true raised bed provides, even more so if it is filled with a moisture retentive peat mix. This is the equivalent of digging a planting hole in clay soil and filling with loose, moisture holding amendments - the water just sits there and rots the plants.

I'd seriously consider reconstructing your beds so they are on the surface of the soil rather than sunk into it. For one, they will last a lot longer :-) And this automatically improves drainage. Fill with a mix of your existing soil and compost. Or imported soil and compost if you need to. I'd avoid the peat. It alters pH unnecessarily and has minimal remaining organic matter or nutrients available and can be either excessively moisture retentive or water repelling, depending on conditions. Make and use your own compost liberally or look for a quality bulk product if necessary - many municipalities have composting operations to recycle yard waste that results in a perfectly decent compost they make available to homeowners. And plant cover crops in early fall to add organic matter, protect the soil and add nutrients.

I think you will see a noticeable improvement in how your garden performs and how the crops grow if you follow this advice.

November in New England, I would collect a few bags of leaves and put a 6 - 10 inch layer over the whole garden before you get snow covered.

Next spring plant right into the now compacted leaf mulch and cover those baby seedlings with ( supported with hoops ) chicken wire to keep critters away.

Plant leaf lettuce, cabbages + greens ( that do good if if the summer is cool + wet )
and also plant tomatoes and peppers ( which will do good if summer is warm )

also, next year post some pictures of your garden which could make it alot easier for people to help you diagnose any of
the problems ( if there still are some )

hth

I think you're just trying toooo hard! Stop trying to add so much to your soil. A few inches of compost in the fall and cover with some chopped up leaves. Good to go for spring. Enough said.
JFYI, my peppers didn't do so good either. Too chilly or rainy for them this summer. And, my maters grew but wouldn't ripen on the vine most of the time either.
You're probably just "killing them with kindness" cheer up and ease off till next spring. Then plant again, but don't over do anything. :)