Also making it hard for the roots to grow. I'm not sure what kind of clay you're dealing with, but it has some ability to hold water in drought along with a terrible ability to break off the roots when it dries. I grew up in a house where our yard was built up to be above flood level with builder's clay and a slight amount of topsoil. It always caused the plants root stress.
The soil needs to be friable, that is the texture of a loam so the roots can breathe. This is hard to achieve in some places, dependent on geology and construction. There are some concenrs about the sustainablility of peat bogs, however, so if you've found something that works as well, you might not choose it.
I then lived in a house where it flooded a few times, but that was all river bottom, wonderful, brown loam, many feet down. After a few decades it was compacted and I lightened it up with dump truck loads of nice white river bank sand for the grass to keep it friable. For my gardens I went to a farm to get manure from an old style dairy that used peat moss in the stalls. That stuff was already like fertilizer.
I kept on composting with everything but animal products. A good composting book will tell you what you need to naturally replicate the composition of chemical fertilizers. Things like green sand, kelp, your chicken manure and bat guano are great. But horse manure if you can get it, IMO, is best, second is cow manure because they aren't as hot as the other two. But in a pile that doesn't matter, if you have sufficient carbon to work with.
And if your pile is getting hot enough for long enough and is aerobic, not anaerobic, it will kill the pathogens in failed plants and weeds, although that might be easier to put them in the trash for safety.
In my area, we have a lot of city recycling, all packaging except styrofoam and a few rogue plastics can be recycled here. But we also have composting from the city. I fill buckets for them composed of rinsed eggshells, fruit and vegetable peelings, coffee grinds and filters, food soiled paper, etc.
Those you can also put in your compost, and help it go with your grass and plant clippings and leaves. It used to drive me crazy when I'd see people burn or toss their leaves and grass clippings in the trash, or their wood chips and branches. Now it is sent into some place and composted where they can pile it and get it hot enough to kill all diseases and pathogens. Most of what comes from your kitchen can go into your compost, just not any animal poop, have to compost that separately.
You probably know all of this by now. The last place I had a lot of acreage was extremely dry, almost no rainfall except in the winter. And the soil was a clay called caliche. It turned into a fine dust and was good for driveways, etc. and when it dried it was very hard, you had to use a pick axe to break it. But if it was good and wet, and had sufficient organic matter (like the vegetable and fruit clippings, peat moss and manures) it was great for growing in.
That was where I used green manures as well, which you may or may not have used. That's when you get a crop like clover, alfalfa, vetch, etc. and grow a good stand and turn it over. It really lightens the soil up nicely. I don't know how much area you are working with, climate or what you're growing.
You have a great opportunity there. I was never as happy as I was when I had a garden. I hope I answered some questions, but think you're on the road to being less dependent on the things the stores are selling. We certainly don't want to ruin what little topsoil we have and promote bad businesses.
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