The next year everything grew slower. I added manure and turned the soil, used pea straw for mulch and worm juice, but it felt like diminishing returns. Every year it got worse, and nothing – manure, mulch, fish fertliser, a whole winter of green manure crops – seemed to help. It got to the point where a greens patch I sowed from seed didn't grow more than a few inches in months.
So this summer I went back to the start and got two cubic metres of soil/compost mix, turned the soil over, forked the good soil through, covered everything with pea straw, and planted veggies: four kinds of tomatoes, cucumbers, greens (kale, rocket and lettuce), beans, basil – all stuff that had grown well before.
Alas, after almost a month, and despite watering every day and fertilising with fish emulsion, the plants look yellow and sick. The basil appears to have bolted already. Some of the tomatoes haven't grown at all (left over seedlings still in the punnet have grown more). Not sure quite what to do.
Any advice much appreciated

(My phone camera makes things look greener than they are for some reason).