We moved to a new home last summer. Previously we experienced great veggie gardening on a plot we enriched for 10+ years.

At the new house I put in 7 raised beds (used untreated doug-fir 2x10's). Last fall (Sept 2010) I added about 2/3 "4-way topsoil" and 1/3 "manure and mushroom compost". I figured sitting through a rainy Northwest fall/winter would help 'wash out' any salt issues with the compost.

Things smelled good. Looked good. Fair number of worms. Got a normal early start to the season in March with Peas, Walla Walla sweet onions, garlic and spinach.

And, this is where the mixed results come in. Everything came up quickly/normally but than has been very very slow to grow. Spinach is maybe the size of a dime. Peas are about 5 inches tall. About 1/2 of the onions yellowed and died. The other 1/2 are about a 4th of the size I'd expect by now. The Garlic seems roughly normal although some yellowing of leaves seems strange.

Sent the soil to UMass for testing. PH is high. Organic matter appears to be through the roof. I've tried to read/research as much as I can but I can't seem to come up with a reasonable explanation as to what I have and/or what is wrong and/or what I should do.

Results -

PH, 8.0
Nitrogen, 0 ppm
P, 155 ppm
K, 394 ppm
Ca, 2153 ppm
Mg, 461 ppm
CEC, 32.9
Organic Matter, 23%

I can list other items. Seems like everything I read says to lower the PH, try adding more compost. But with an Organic Matter of 23%, seems like that is throwing more of the same thing at. I added blood meal to try to kick it a bit.

I contacted the source of the soil/compost and they admitted to not testing their incoming/outgoing material so unfortunately did not have much to offer. They blamed poor growth on the weather.

Any thoughts/help ? Thanks. Peter

Use ammonium sulfate as that will help decrease the pH, albeit very slowly. Use small amounts of the fert then repeat as needed. Too much added all at once will damage your plants.

Except for the high pH and zilch N. The soil looks good structurally. Mushroom compost is a 'conditioner' not a nutrient; it's pretty wasted of N by the time they finish with it and pawn it off.

Anyway, my comment about 0.0 ppm available nitrogen stands. I think it's a lab error.
My comments about salinity also stand because we don't know the starting salinity of the compost or the soil.

That being said, the final blend is 23% O.M. by dry weight, which is super high. If the mushroom compost was 1/3 of the final blend by volume, that would put you in the 7 to 8% organic range by dry weight if mixed with a mineral soil. And that's if the compost itself were high in organic material. (The analyses I looked at for the compost ranged from about 30 to 60% O.M. by dry weight). So, it would be a safe bet that your 4-way soil is probably around 15% O.M. by dry weight or a little higher. That means that it was probably about 50% to 60% organic material by volume and who the heck knows what that O.M. was.
If it was raw wood chips, you would still have some available nitrogen in the analysis, but potentially not enough to balance carbon and it's feasible that you do indeed have a nitrogen draw issue.
Or, if it has a heavy manure component, that could contribute to salts. (even a high quality greenwaste compost will often have a salinity level of 5 to 7 dS/m).
Also consider that such a high amount of organic matter has the potential to hold too much water, especially if drainage isn't all that great at the bottom of the planters.

Never discount the weather...

The OP is located in WA state and as previous posters from that area have pointed out, our spring thus far has been well below normal with respect to temperature and well above normal with respect to rainfall. I'd guess the soil is simply still too cold and too wet for much robust growth of very seasonal plants -- even established landscape plants are several weeks to a month or more behind 'schedule'.

The existing levels of OM will help to generate necessary N but may not deliver rapidly enough - I'd consider the application of something like alfalfa meal to speed things up a bit......but you may just be forced to wait for better/warmer weather to see much of a change :-)

FWIW, WA state has all manner of professional testing labs whose services you could have taken advantage of without having to ship stuff to MA. There is just no longer any free service or any soil testing at all done by the extension service or land grant universities. A local lab is more inclined to offer results that are tailored specifically to the growing conditions of that locale.

re: Weather - I've planted sweet onions in mid Feb and had it snow 4-5 inches on them. No issues. Some of these have actually died. Friends 2 blocks away planted same time and are 3-4 times further along in growth.

re: Moisture and organic matter - we see the opposite. The soil drains freely and the top 2-3 inches dries out incredibly fast.

Should raised beds warm quicker than non raised? I always thought raised would warm quicker but I had a local farm coop manager tell me thay actually take longer to warm.

I've added blood meal and a small shot of Miracid.

I suspect there is more bark material in the 4-way soil than one would want. Am I correct in thinking that could be locking up my nitrogen and also explain the high organic % ?

gardengal48 - where are you located and can you point me to a local lab? Local extension website pointed me to UMass and local master gardener group didn't offer up any local resources.

I'm in learning mode. I've never dug this deep into soil dynamics. Also never had any particular struggles in growing much of anything over the last 12 years. Well, watermelon never did fruit and okra only grew about 2 inches, so not totally true. :)

Thanks for the help.

WSU provides an exhaustive list of local (WA & OR) labs tht I've linked below. I prefer Soil and Plant Laboratory in Bellevue. It's close and it tests everything! (Bellevue, WA office: P.O. Box 1648, Bellevue, WA 98009-1648 (425) 746-6665 13547 S.E. 27th Place, Ste. 3B, Bellevue, WA 98005 FAX: 425-562-9531)