Starting with the basics of organic gardening, there isn't much that you can do without good fertile soil. Being a beginner myself, I'm just learning what that means.
You want soft soil that can hold moisture as opposed to hard, crusty, dry soil. It is a good sign if your soil has many worms or worm channels for they mix the nutrients and keep the ground soft. Clay soil is very sticky; because of it's density it will hold water better than a sandy soil. It also contains great nutrients for your garden so you want this soil mixed with other kinds of soil.
The soil ph is one factor that can make the difference between good healthy plants and starved sickly plants. Soil ph is measured on a scale of 1 to 14; 1 is highly acidic. Soil that is too acidic can wash out the nutrients while the soil with too much alkalinity will not make the nutrients available to the plants. Normally you want the soil ph to be 7 or slightly less depending on what you will be raising. So in other words a little acidity is usually good. For example, most vegetables thrive in soil between 6 and 7 while blueberries prefer even more acid. With blueberries you could go as low as 5.5 because they enjoy the acidity. If you want to raise an organic garden it would be prudent to exercise caution when adjusting the ph of your garden.
If you have well tended soil, you should have a thriving garden and I am looking forward to building mine!
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