New to gardening, clumpy soil

[sir]

Hello,
I am new to gardening and am planning on doing a small planting this year to test the waters so to speak.
The site where I plan to plant has soil that to my eyes looks a bit 'clumpy' lots of golf ball and bigger sized clumps of dirt that are pretty hard packed, here are some photos:
https://s23.postimg.org/9lmrp798r/soil.jpg
https://s23.postimg.org/5kkdriiyz/2013_0 ... _10_03.jpg
https://s23.postimg.org/yx66dojuz/2013_0 ... _10_42.jpg

I am wondering what, if anything, I could do to this soil to soften it up, reduce the clumps and make it better for planting?

Thanks in advance.

[rainbowgardener]

Turning that into good soil will be a several year process of adding and turning in lots of compost, fall leaves, grass clippings and whatever organics you have to hand and hard work with shovel/ fork/ hoe. You could skip all that by building raised beds on top of it and just filling them with good topsoil and compost to start with.