Soil Sampling - WhatÕs your Garden Made of?

Before deciding what you’d like to plant in your garden, you need to take the time to do some soil sampling to see which fruit or vegetables or flowers will grow best in the kind of soil you have. Garden plans are not going to bear fruit (or vegetables!) unless the soil you have is consistent with the kind of soil needed to grow the kind of things you’d like.

You can do a soil test yourself. These days there are soil sample kits available from most major garden supply stores, or through specialist gardening catalogues which will give simple instructions on how to carry out the test using the chemicals and equipment (usually something like a small test tube in which to place the soil and the chemicals) provided.

Depending on the color the test sample turns, your soil will be identified as being suitable for different kinds of growing. Take samples from a few different areas of your garden – you may find that you have a different kind of soil nearer your house for example, than you have on your property boundaries.

Can you Modify the Soil?

If you’ve taken a soil sample and found that the plans you had for the garden wont work, then it is possible to modify some types of soil by adding in missing nutrients. In many cases, all the gardener needs is to add some fertilizer to the soil which contains which ever of the nutrients are missing from the sample – for example calcium or potassium. The soil sample will also tell you the level of lime in your garden and from this you can judge how much, if any, of this you need to add to your soil. Get your soil balance right and your produce has a head start in life!

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