When we bought this place 20 years ago, the garden was as hard as concrete. My husband had a dickens of a time plowing it. The old garden fence had been removed, and wouldn’t you know it, the soil on the other side of the fence was a beautiful rich black and extremely easy to work. The previous owner had thrown scraps, trimmings, and weeds outside the garden. The only fertilizer he used was chemical because he didn’t want weeds.
My husband spent years adding clippings and dried manure from the barn, and plowing it into the soil. No more chemicals have been added, no pesticides. He spends endless time, squishing bugs by hand. Yuck! But it certainly has paid off.
Serious lack of organic matter, as you corrected, and the soil was probably compacted from being worked too much. So glad that all the work is paying off!