Funny you mentioned mushroom compost— I saw it at Home Depot and remembered your post on the subject. Didn’t buy it but I added my own homemade compost to the clay soil and tried both seeds and transplanted spinach seedlings but zippo. My gal pal she buys her spinach plants and has better success when transplanting. So maybe next time I’ll use your mushroom compost suggestion—hey maybe for the Fall planting. Maybe the swiss chard will work well too in it since mine went the spinach bust route too. Danke....
I bought some from Home Depot to try too, but haven’t had a chance to do it yet.
The M.R. Compost I had been using came from Walmart, and it was different brand. So I’ll have to see what the Home Depot stuff does too.
That writer who wrote I think it was Pleasant Valley (in Ohio), he was trying to recondition soil from farmed out and abandoned farms. He used grass and something to eat it, horses or cows I think.
You can look up what I suggested. I know you don't want to lose a growing season but it might be worth it. Otherwise you could look into lasagne beds. I haven't tried them yet but they throw down cardboard, then pile green cuttings and then compost, somehow plant through the cardboard, not sure how that is supposed to work.
We have a horrible clay soil here. I got around it by using raised beds and mixing and dumping in the mix that I wanted, I dug up the grass and turned it over. Shook out all the dirt and threw the dried grass and roots into the compost pile. Then I filled in the beds.
I have one bed that I just covered the grass over with cardboard. It worked for several seasons.
Hubby has amended his gardens by mixing lots of organic matter, and soil, topsoil, and old barn sawdust and manure etc. He gets good results in his beds now, and the soil is more loam than clay now. He also has buckets and buckets of rocks that he removed from the garden area.