Eli Bajalia

Bend post Above makes sense to me. The top 6" of soil definitely looks like straight up worm castings (you would think this would be a good thing right?) castings are sticky and when they dry out the become hard and hard to rewet, kinda sloppy and just not a good structure. So what to do? How do I make this too 6" soft with good structure all the time?

Let me be clear, mucky. Not sticky like clay.

This area has virtually no clay, but I hear what your saying.." It sure does mimic a clay like issue. also when you water heavily, it does not wet evenly and what does get wet gets kinda mucky. It's weird after a rain sometimes you go dig around and there's dry spots in the bed like it did not even rain.

I've had an urban food forest for 4.5 years now. It's under a 1/4 acre in north east Fl. It's a well established system in production.i am recently having problems in my annual gardens....

They are no-dig. Never been tilled. They started off as a sheet mulch. I grow cover crops amongst my annual veggies along with other herbs and flowers. Every time in plant a new plant, the hole gets filled with high grade compost I make, and so does the the immediate area around the new plant. The soil is Always mulched with straw or mulch hay. Lately I've been using chopped oak leaves because they are free. The native soil here is a mineral sand with very little if any organic material. Super low in Nitrogen and high in P and K. Now, after 4 years. I'm high in Nitrogen and low in Potassium with a decent amount of Phosphorus.
I make super aerated compost teas very similar to Elaine ingham of the soil food web. Nowadays ,the soil looks nothing like mineral sand but super dark and soft and full of worms when it's raining, when there are dry periods, the soil gets very hard on top, kinda crusty and dry. It's as if it becomes somewhat hydrophobic as well. The structure when dry looks like hard dry little balls and kind of baked looking even under a nice layer of mulch, and you actually have to bust thru the top layer with a small spade to plant. I read somewhere that lack of clay and lots of green manure (constant chopping and dropping) can cause a waxy kinda exudate to form and make the soil somewhat hydrophobic. I never pull up plants ever from seasonal veggies, just chop them at the soil line and leave the roots down there to rot, add more compost mulch and plant. The difference in texture and tilth between rainy periods and dry periods is shocking.The plants are slow to grow but turn out healthy in the end but I believe production is being affected. slow growth, more prone to insect damage etc. I've been gardening for a long time and thus one has me completely stumped. If you would like to see a tour of my project here's the link on YouTube.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7iSaRzjxL3E

Any help from you permies out there would be amazing, thank you sooooo much!!!