Gardening Methods

topsoil mixture for vegetable garden?

I am going to grow soy beans, peas, asparagus, eggplant, cucumber, zucchini, tomatoes, carrots and broccoli. I live in Hawaii (year round growing season for most veggies!) and the soil I have to work with is very dense with lots of clay. What should I mix it with to make a nice top soil? Also, it rains A LOT where I live– like 200 inches a year a lot, which means the soil is always damp if not muddy. Will the plants like this or should I add something to help with drainage? I’m a total newbie to gardening so I appreciate any advice, thanks!
great answers everyone, thanks!

Hi there, the soil in my garden is also very poor so I actually grow my veggies in large polystyrene boxes (the ones you see in fruit and veg stores), line the bottom with broken up pieces of polystyrene to promote good drainage along with good holes in the boxes, and a premium potting mix that contains slow release fertilisers, water crystals etc. if too much water is retained in the soil it will rot the plants’ roots and produce that grows beneath the soil eg carrots so drainage is imperative.
- are you buying your crops as seedlings? (i always start with seedlings rather than growing from seed for higher success rate) another thing I found useful when you first start out with the seedlings, once planted in the soil, it to gather up your compost food scraps (potato peelings, carrot peelings, lettuce leaves and corn jackets etc) and ’sprinkle’ them across the top soil, particularly around the plant’s stem. the reason I do this is to protect the soil from harsh sun (excessive soil drying) while allowing (to a degree but not a solely reliable method) heavy rain to run off to the side instead of penetrating the soil immediately where the roots are resided.
- make sure you have a good trellis for your beans, peas, cucumbers etc so they are not dangling against moist ground as this can ruin the produce as well. you probably know that your tomatoes and eggplant will need stakes once they start gaining height; put the stakes in early ,as if you do this once the plant has matured to the required height you risk damaging the roots which will be more mature
- keep the fertiliser up to your plants (you will notice if they are overdue the leaves will be yellowish in appearance). also if you are able to obtain any, i use cow and chicken manure with my vegie patch – they love it it is a great natural fertiliser as is the compost scraps
- one footnote – depending on the level of bee activity in your garden (! stay with me, i promise this is going somewhere ha ha) once your plants go to flower of course the flowers need to be pollinated in order to produce the fruits (veg). in my experience, where i live there seems to be a distinct lack of bees so my little trick is to take a cotton bud and tickle inside the flower to encourage pollination; this is easier on some than others eg zucchinis will produce large flowers while tomato flowers are relatively small but doing this will ensure maximum yield.

hope this helps and I’m sorry I went above and beyond the question you asked, but thought I would share some advice as I was once a newbie and thanks to others’ advice I take a lot of pleasure in gardening now.

happy growing

EDIT: agree with Jon (answer above) – sand is great to use in your soil mix for drainage purposes

Mandala Garden Vegetable Salad