Lime issue - "Your dad ruined our soil"

It's what my mom said to me on the phone.

He added too much lime. You'll have to bear with me because I don't know anything about my parent's soil. Both my parents, and I, moved away from the home town they raised me in, and they now live 3 provinces over (I live in Canada). The things I do know about my parents soil is that it's in Alberta, and they do conventional/row growing. Chemical use might not be high, but certainly they wouldn't eschew it.

My mom is saying that next year they're just going to do raised bed gardening and buy all their soil. I think raised bed gardening is a great option, but I'm not into the bought soil. I think it's a weird industry, and must harm a lot of biodiversity by being stripped from the original site, and then sterilized.

Any advice I could forward to my parents?

Being more than a few miles to the south, I obviously don’t know much about your soil.  I suspect the first step is to ask why she thinks it is ruined.  I would also test it for acidity.  

All she's said is "No cucumbers, peppers or watermelon this year."

I believe she buys starts, so maybe they died after being planted

Have your parents had a soil test done to establish a baseline of what the soil pH actually is?

Just asked. Mom says the ph is over 8

I would suggest that your Mom was just frustrated.

Maybe it is too late for plants this year.  If this had happened to me I would start working toward rebuilding the nutrients in the soil.

This post might offer some Help:

https://permies.com/t/122925/soil-pH-questions#984563

I would also recommend reading Redhawks Edic Soil Series thread and sharing it with your parents:

https://permies.com/wiki/redhawk-soil