soil building for backyard garden

[Guest guest]

Hello everyone! I'm getting back to vegetable gardening after a two year haitus

(new baby and bad morale after disappointing yields). I'm fairly new to it

anyhow.

I'm in Saint Louis Park, and our soil is not good. It's extremely sandy and I've

had blossom end rot on my peppers every year despite careful watering. I'm

wanting to build raised beds and bring something in. I do compost, so the beds

will get amendments with that. My question is this: I looked at Square Foot

Gardening, and intensive gardening makes much more sense to me - I've not done

it before. However, the soil mix that's recommended sounds nutritionally

bankrupt to me (1/3 vermiculite, 1/3 peat moss, 1/3 compost from at least 5

different material sources).

I'm starting to peruse this site (http://bit.ly/9f3SDA) and I would appreciate

any pointers or links you can direct me to. I know it's a marathon and not a

quick fix to build good soil, but I really don't want to continue with what I

have. What would you do if you were wanting to go from scratch in raised beds?

Thanks for your patience with me!

~