Your responses are a great help. I think I have resolved my own confusion about what I am asking or think I need to know. The clay soil debate is very interesting and amusing. Who would have thought it? The mushroom soil is a real suggestion I have forgotten. We have lots of mushroom farms around here and that soil has been recommended to us before. I'll duck on this one, but this garden is my wife's passion of long standing. I like fresh veggies but otherwise am pretty disinterested. I do have a soil testing lab, mostly to determine mineral fractions and permeability for septic systems. So I am more interested in other aspects of the ground than she, and I don't know if either of us believe the other knows what's happening. My concern with all this is the garden drainage. With shallow silt clay with heavy mottles, there are obvioous shallow anaerobic conditions conditions to inhibit plant growth. I have no idea what garden plants thrive under what conditions. I wanted to drain the garden plot of excess water and then work as you all have suggested to improve the friability and fertility of the native soil. My wife now wants a raised bed garden, more for looks than for avoiding the water situation, which still bothers me with the possibility of wicking and saturation or at least of creating a fairly impermeable horizon in the beds. Of course, I worry too much and tend to over-design (and poorly). So the plan now is for me to drain a 10x10-foot plot using perforated drain pipe to a cistern that can be pumped out easily to my pond. That should ease the water problem. Then the beds (four 4x4) with mushroom soil and whatever else she knows we need. We each get to play in the dirt and hopefully not to have clay wars! Simple and reasonable? Dry out the ground, forget the issues with clay soil structure and organic content and just enjoy. Am I missing anything, any longer-term effects anyone has experienced? Thanks for helping me get my thoughts together and for the value of your experiences. Great forum, very nice people. Mike

Yeah, That could be a lot of things, In April,I did what you did (sort of)I used cardboard right over sod and mine is 8" tall, but besides that everything is the same, and I don't have those issues, my guess is that your soil has become "water -phobic", there is a real word that describes that process, but I can't remember what it is, if it was my bed I would use my fingers to mix up the top couple of inches and water it by hand with a hose sprayer , so it is getting all over ,for at least a couple of weeks , by then it should resolve that problem.

You can *significantly* cut down on evaporation by "plasticulturing" your container. Ie: you put a plastic liner (ie: a bag) over top and plant your plants through them. Helps keep the water in the soil, not the air. Unscientific experiment (tomatoes in 5gal paint bucket, +28C out, balcony, southern view). No plastic: water every other day, container weighs very little. 1 white plastic grocery bag on top: water every 5th day. Lots of ways other than plastic film, plastic is ugly after all, but none are as thin. From the pictures I would think herbs, strawberries, etc. with small roots would be okay. Tomatoes not a chance. I was at Costco the other day and they had raised bed planters. I didn't measure, but the soil depth looked about 10-12" (tapering to a point, so perhaps as shallow as 8") One issue on a balcony: when you water the person on the 1st floor will get all the run-off splashing onto their legs when you water. Water collection keeps you a nice neighbour.

They absolutely need drainage holes!! Personally, I would skip the plastic lining in favor of an ecologically sensitive wood preservative, but if you use it, that needs drainage holes as well.