What is the best way of improoveing the soil for veg

Hi I am new on here, my problem is that my veg patches produce verry small plants.
I have sectioned off 4 beds ready to put raised beds, but only the potatoes gave a good crop.
Last yr I put the compost we made onto the beds, and bags of horse manure that we got from the garden centre, i allso added chicken pelets and bone meal to each patch.
But still got small veg. What am i doing wrong guys,my seads were purched from garden centre, and most plants were started in the greenhouse then transplanted.
the garden has a high wall around it but the beds are in the section of garden that gets more sun.

Any help would be most welcomed.

 

I don't grow veg, but think that you also need to use fertilizers at specific times of growth? ....

but am baffled as to why the veg you grow are undersized ... only thing that I can think of is that they are not getting the correct amount of sunlight?

I am sure you will get loads of correct advice here

 

What type of potatoes and veg did you grow and did you plant at the right time...I grow from seed and if possible grow in the potting shed first then harden off then plat at the plot

 

Hi VEGY.

Some good points raised there by JWK. I was going to mention watering One thing that I would like to add, does your soil develop a 'crust' after watering? Plants also need oxygen at their roots, and I've quite often seen plants languishing in soil that has this 'crust'. One or two of my raised beds can become like this, so I always try to loosen up the soil especially during dry/sunny spells. Just to add, for most crops (except 'roots'), plenty of 'muck' works for me, not much need for fertilisers apart from maybe a bit of growmore.

Cheers...Freddy.

 

Are you planting things to close together, if you overcrowd the plants you will get small yields.

 

Thanks guys for the advice the veg were lettice grew ok, cabbage verry small, collies & brokely ex small, apart from the purpel sprouting nice size.
Corgets ok, carrots no show as were the sweed and beetroot no show.

 

What I would say is I remember when my gran first tried rearing vegetables and she had a similar issue and it came down to (as blacksmith mentioned) the spacing, where she hadn't allowed quite enough room for them to grow.

Although my dey always fixed the compost at the end of each season and just before it started again, really, by the time everything was planted down into the vegetable patch, the compost wasn't really touched too much in terms of adding fertilisers etc.

 

I don't know this from experience, but I've read in many different sources that carrots hate rich soil, especially recently manured soil.

I grew some turnips and radish in freshly manured soil. Both had plenty of top side growth but no bulbous roots.

My money would be on the soil being too rich for some veg.

In a mix of horse manure and chicken pellets, I'd expect an awesome crop of potatoes, and that bit I do know from experience.