Evaluating and Testing Your Organic Gardens Soil
by John Yazo
This first step in improving your organic gardens soil is to have some basic knowledge of what you are working with. Studying the soil in your garden and preforming a few basic backyard tests is the best guide to improving the soils structure.
The soil texture of your garden, the relative size and proportion of mineral particles that your garden soil is made of, clay, silt and sand. The percentage of these three components are very useful information about your gardens soil.
* Clay, a poor draining soil, tends to crust over easily when dry and air, along with water doesn't penetrate well.
* Sand, a soil that doesn't retain moisture or nutrients well and has very loose granular particles that feel gritty.
*Silt, a soil that compacts easily, has the ability to hold moisture, along with nutrients, and is basically easy to cultivate.
*Loam, a mixture of clay, sand and silt. It is considered the best type soil for gardening. A soil texture of 40 percent sand, 40 percent silt and 20 percent clay is classified as loam.
Testing soil to find it's texture can simply be done with a few basic household items, a jar with a tight lid, dish detergent and water, along with a soil sample. It is a easy test that can be preformed by yourself or you can send a sample to your local cooperative service center for testing.
The results from this test will give you the percent of sand, silt and clay that your gardens soil is made of and will give you useful information needed to add the proper soil amendments, organic and mineral.
The use of organic amendments is very important when organic gardening and creating a natural environment for your plants to thrive.
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