In case it isn;t obvious..

most of our land is-well, forest. it's all very sloped due to the creek running through the middle. the basic ground is deep red clay though the spot I chose for 5 raised beds was nothing but gray white and yellow subsoil.but it got sun. in short supply here. I must say, further up the driveway we put in apples, a jujube, and berries. they love the clayey and rather acid soil. and it is deep there-well over a foot before you get to subsoil.

At the very front, 6 years ago we tilled up a fan shaped bed (the only garden I tilled, here!my friends have the big front end tiller and I keep forgetting t get it back!)-threw in some bags of topsoil,and put in daylilies,daffodils, iris, a butterfly bush-and despite never being watered, very infrequent clean up or weeding, and only the occasional fertilizer (espoma) it looks great all summer.

this ground WILL grow things-it just needs to be encouraged.

further back ( behind the house) we let the goats and good mowing clean out the weedy stuff. planted a bed of mostly lilies under the old satellite dish, and the little greenhouse sits next to it.in the tree line are the compost piles, the comfrey, etc.I used the goats to clean up next to the driveway, far side, and put in hostas, azaleas-little irregular beds that lead to the wild laurels. it is very nice.

the lilies are also sloped ( good for them;drainage) and the soil was awful.that;s taken six years to rectify and we also added a short garden wall. ( to match the new beds made by walls around the slate patio we built.)

I hadn;t realized how sloped the ground was until I saw that all the veggies dried up in August.( using no-till; just laid down compost and sheets of newspaper) no matter how I watered. that;s when Bruce dug out the raised beds for me, and we chose narrow 12 inch paths to concentrate the downward pressure and make-water baffles! did it work? yes! does compost work? yes! do we need to keep improving the beds? ( 18 inches deep or more?) yes! but it is a start. Lime and minerals and cover crops were the big chores this past fall.( I've used the wood ashes for years but it didn;t sweeten the soil as much as I hoped)

this year we have 2 new short beds further down the driveway( so should I say 240 square feet?)-and will try putting the tomatoes in tubs around the greenhouse (following that sunlight wherever I can)our usual greenhouse winter spinach is pouting in the extreme cold. but that;s OK cause it;s almost time to start flower seeds and then the veggies. I'm psyched!