Improve soil by mulching.
Mulching is covering the earth with organic materials. Suitable materials are all leftovers of your vegetable garden, (autumn) leaves, wood chips, hay, straw, pruning (e.g. alfalfa, comfrey, nettle), compost. Initially, a mulch layer protects the soil from dehydration and erosion. (blow away and rain wash out). Secondly, mulch activates and propagates soil life. The soil life slowly digests the mulch, where the humus that has arisen is mixed by the critters through the earth. The nutrients of the digested mulch have been released and can now be absorbed by the plants as a food.
An additional advantage of mulching is that your vegetables remain clean at the bottom when it rains. A raindrop that strikes on bare earth splashes into many small drops. Each of those drops takes earth and splashes against the bottom of the plant. But if a raindrop falls on a mulch layer, the drop is reduced by a factor of 5. Similar to a very soft spray of a plant syringe. These miniature drops hardly have the power to splash high. And if they do, there's no earth on it. Your vegetables stay clean.
Now improving the soil Fungi digest the raw materials before, after which bacteria, woodwood, centipedes and the like can enjoy. Worms pull the decaying material into the ground, making oxygen corridors. Plant roots love to find their way in those corridors. Worms poop nitrogen-rich pooches that give your bottom structure and roll. Bacteria convert the organic materials into 42 different nutrients (such as carbon and nitrogen). They hold these for the plants. The billions of bacteria's pooches also contain a kind of glue that gives the soil its beautiful coarse-grained structure.
Much less watering required. By mulching, you can protect the soil from dehydration anyway. But a living soil itself also retains much more moisture. Organic compounds (humus/compost) can hold up to 10 x its own weight water retention . For example, a single teaspoon of compost contains 75,000 different types (!) bacteria. Bacteria exist for more than 95% off water . Another reason to wish for a rich soil life; calcium (the most important element for plants) is bound to bacteria. Without bacteria, the soil collapses and becomes compact. Oxygen disappears. No oxygen, no life, no plants.
