I'm in Colorado and the soil here is terrible trying to start a small garden behind my house. Even with purchased good quality dirt and fertilizer, it's still very very hard solid.

Back in college, I took a soil science class. The professor said the Laramie valley has (used to at least) pretty good soil – fairly light and decent nutrient profile. There was a big western farm boom in the 1910's during a wet period that lasted 10-20 years. I'm not overly familiar with all the soil types in Colorado.

We have one farmer who uses some of our equipment, but he has also had good luck with soil in Fort Collins, CO [1]. He's on a hill though near a lake which might help. He said drainage was important for him.

Vertical farming is a great way to get around issues with soil quality. Especially for winter growing and also reducing the labor associated with planting, weeding, and harvesting. Seriously though, schedule a time to drop by if you're ever up in Laramie. We have a lot of knowledgeable people here who love talking growing! One of my coworkers has also done some good work on the economics or vertical farming (using our equipment mainly, as – well – that's what we know!) [2]. Much of the economics should be comparable on other vertical systems (though, probably less efficient you know ;) ).

Are you a software dev or tech person? Always fun to talk about the combo of farm and tech!

1: http://bayberryfresh.com/ 2: https://youtu.be/u-aFueGWSFU?t=6m1s

Thank you! Indeed, I may need to take a drive up and take a peek :)

Small-house gardening, wherever you go in the world, is all about the compost. Get your compost working, and you can grow a house garden pretty much anywhere. Seriously! Composts are the key to all successful house gardens in rugged territory. (Disclaimer: It takes a couple years to boot up a good compost that'll fix yer soils..)

http://eartheasy.com/grow_compost.html

Where do you live in Colorado? I've had good luck gardening in both Boulder and Denver.

High altitude gardening (e.g., in the mountains) is difficult, but that is more due to the short growing season than the soil.

Thornton, it's all clay here :)

Have you considered double-digging? Works pretty well here in New Mexico.

double digging a garden:

    http://aces.nmsu.edu/ces/yard/2007/020307.html