Heh, rocks and rock-headed voters, but, I digress — this thread is supposed to be non-political!
We have a couple inches of half-decent topsoil (mostly long-broken down hickory leaves & debris), then orange-ish clay nearly impervious to water, then 18” - 24” down there is a few inch layer of smelly, grey, REALLY impervious to water, clay, then it’s back to the orange stuff until you hit gravel / sand / rock 20+ feet down.
The 1st garden area is ~100 ft. east of our house, the 2nd another ~20 ft. further. The entire part of the property 20 ft. to 200 ft. east of the house seems to be slowly subsiding, too...
Wow, "Break up the fallow ground" comes to mind but with that "soil" breaking up is both harder and leave much to be desired. Sounds like a truck load of manure, gravel, and topsoil (the latter is just $2 for 40 lbs here) could help.
How large is your plot?