After cleaning up all the dead plant debris and getting down to bare soil, I first replenished the nutrients for several months by covering with poultry litter (straw plus manure), which is perfectly balanced in NPK and will not prevent blooms from forming like some overly-nitrogenous manures.

Late winter / early spring, I removed the spent covering and composted it outside the garden. Next I spread a blend of diatomaceous earth and French clay available from the feed supply store - called Geobond. We also feed it in small amounts to the hens to prevent worm infections.

That was topped-off with ashes from the woodstove, which are rich in calcium, potassium, etc. It is somewhat saline, so can't be used every year, except on crops that are calcium hogs (celery, broccoli). The calcium strengthens plant stems, making them more impervious to attack or breakdown of their cell walls. If you don't have a woodstove, loose charcoal powder is available at organic markets in bulk.

Composted organic matter was dumped on top of this and double-dug into the soil. This was well-watered and allowed to "percolate" for a couple of weeks before sowing seed. So nothing extra was purchased to correct the soil that we didn't already have on hand.

Solarizing the soil can also be done to sterilize it, but it takes weeks longer and wasn't necessary with the above methods. Solarizing kills all beneficial micro-organisms as well, but they quickly recolonize in the garden.

This year I interplanted two anti-pathogen/anti-parisitic crops among the other produce: artemisia and a potent strain of tall marigolds (tagetes) that are shown to be stronger than some pesticides. Dried cuttings are being hung in the pantry to be worked into the soil next spring.

Even after the solid month of rain that we had in June here in the Northeast, I have yet to spot any sign of blight in the garden, and all my veggie plants are waist high except for the perpetual strawberries.

Have personally had much luck in the past with starting my own seeds, but somehow they have not thrived since moving to our current house. Maybe the wet basement, or too cold basement... also wondering if my bulb configuration is different.
Whatever the case, I'm crossing my fingers, as I use only our own compost, and haven't bought any veggie plants from big-box stores. Two neighbors started their own from seed; will ask a third neighbor. Heck, I could ask a lot of neighbors; then I might get to know them better!
I wonder if starting from seed and using only our own compost really would make a big difference. Time will tell! Good luck to gardeners everywhere.

Luckily, for me, I don't buy plants at places like that, and even better, I opted not to buy any plants at all, but rather to grow from seed. Unfortunately, with such a small space to grow, I almost always have to supplement with storage crops from the Farmer's Market and a couple of local farm stands, and potatoes are a mainstay of our winter diet. If our local growers' potato crop has been compromised, my family might well be in trouble this winter. Hopefully my potato tower experiment will be a success ... or my family will have to learn to like pumpkin and squash instead of potatoes.

The potatoes were heirloom organic so I know they were certified disease free and the tomato plants either a) I grew from seed or b) were from a local nursery although I did buy some plants from the big box store. Those are in fact doing very well, the suffering plants are one that I grew from seed, and one that came from the local nursery (meaning they were grown from seed here locally).

However, all the summer squash, cukes, peppers, winter squash, mellons, lettuces, radishes and herbs are flourishing. They are a little bit behind schedule but looks like they will make up for it with quantity.

Oh, and all the rain made the strawberries really bland tasting. But they were still better than the ones in the supermarkets!