[Jimmy Splash]

i dug up my baked soil and am starting on the plot again. In some places the soil has shades of clay and in others it's quite dry and almost sand like. If i buy a couple of bags of multi purpose compost and mix it in with the soil, do you think that'll help it? Originally my soil resembled a barren desert! Ta

[herbiegrowsbananas]

Hiya, I'm certainly no expert, but when we took on our allotment this year we rotavated in as much manure as we could get our hands on.

Compost will certainly help too.

Herbie

[gillie]

I don't think two bags of multipurpose compost will go very far - unless you use it strategically.

Make rough channels ('drills')  about three inches wide and two deep where you want to sow things and fill them with compost.   Sow your seeds into the compost, add another light layer, pat everything down gently and water it if it is not just about to rain  (as it is here).

I have just sown eight rows of carrots like this - as I do every year.  Now I am resting my back!

Gillie

[boosh]

Hiya, I'm certainly no expert, but when we took on our allotment this year we rotavated in as much manure as we could get our hands on.

Compost will certainly help too.

Herbie

I'm with Herbie on this, Get as much organic material into the ground as you can, bearing in mind what you want to plant, also it depends on how much you can get hold of and how quick you get your compost heaps going.
As for sowing stuff now, then i think Gillies advice is spot on. 

[Christine]

It's going to be a few years of hard work to really improve your soil. You need a long term plan of improvements. First thing - get a corner ready and read up on how to make good compost. This article gives a great amount of information just following the links there. That's free (beg and borrow stuff to go on your heap).

Well rotted manure is a great source of soil improver but the problems that John who runs this site had with it are still around. We had a case appear down the garden association shed about a month since referring to problems last year.

If you are going to grow runner beans next year then find out about a compost trench for them. That's relatively easy to do and saves a lot of work.