Tag Archives: soil building

Garden Advice

Getting a Soil Test

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Soil tests are a simple and accurate way to learn more about your garden soil and determine what amendments it needs. A detailed soil test, a little research, and an understanding of the results can drastically improve your yields and eliminate recurring issues in your garden.

Where to Get Soil Tested?

There are a few ways you can get a soil test. While you may find simple home test kits at your local hardware store, these generally aren’t as accurate or detailed as a professional test. 

Typically, you can get your soil tested through your county extension agency or agricultural college. Many extension agencies and state colleges offer residents free or cheap soil testing. They typically include some recommendations if amendments are needed. Private labs also provide these services, but they may not be as affordable for home gardeners as the other options.

How to Find Your County Extension

To find your county extension agency try browsing the listings of Pick Your Own. They list contact information for county extension agencies across the United States.

When to Sample

We recommend having your garden soil tested every one to two years. Orchard areas typically only need to be tested every three years.

Late summer and fall are ideal times to collect soil samples. This time of year will represent how the soil’s nutrient status affects crops. If needed, you can take soil samples in spring, but you should avoid collecting frozen or waterlogged samples as they may not mix well.

Don’t collect soil after adding lime or other amendments. It’s best to wait several months or even longer if the weather is dry until they’ve dispersed into the soil.

Depending on the lab you’re working with, and how busy they are, it may take several weeks to get the results from your sample. It’s best to send them in well before you need the results.

Where to Sample

You want to get a good picture of the soil throughout your garden, not just in one spot. To do this, you’ll create a composite sample to send in, made from samples taken throughout the garden. For small-scale home gardens, five to eight samples are generally adequate. 

If your garden appears to have distinct slopes and soil types, be sure to get a sample from each area. Avoid taking samples from sites that don’t represent your garden well. These may include garden edges and unique wet spots.

How to Take a Soil Sample

Take soil samples using a spade or auger and collect them in a clean container. How deep you should sample depends on your garden type. Aim for small uniform cores or thin slices starting at the soil surface. 

For traditional backyard gardens, sample to the tillage depth. For no-till gardens, take one sample from the top 1 inch of soil and then take a second sample from the same spot at a depth of one to six inches.

For areas you’d like to establish an orchard, take a surface sample from zero to six inches deep and a subsoil sample from six to twelve inches deep. In established orchards, scrape aside plants and organic matter and take a surface sample. 

Once you’ve collected your samples, gently crush them and remove any stones and roots. Then allow your soil sample to air dry. Spread it out on a clean surface in a shady spot and make sure it dries before mailing. Don’t heat your soil to dry it.

Your samples should be at least one cup of soil in a plastic bag. Depending on the agency or lab, they may have you use or provide a specific bag. Follow your extension agency or lab’s instructions for sending your sample. Be sure to include all necessary paperwork and your name and address. 

 

The gardening science can sometimes feel intimidating, but it doesn’t have to! Getting your soil tested is a simple way to learn how to amend and improve your soil correctly. Your soil test and advice from the local extension agency can help you build healthy soil and grow healthier, more productive plants.



Garden Advice

Soil Texture: The Jar Test

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It’s easy to see that great gardens come from healthy soil. However, it’s less easy to understand how to build healthy soil. There are micro and macronutrients to consider, acidity, cover cropping, the soil food web, and so much more. One way we can examine our soil and easily make adjustments is by understanding its texture. Soil texture determines how it “acts,” like when you’re trying to dig a new bed or get heavy rain. 

One of the easiest ways to examine your soil texture is to do the jar test or the mason jar test. 

The Jar Test

To complete this test, you’ll need some basic supplies; a ruler, permanent marker, water, soil samples from the root zones of your plants, and a clear jar for each sample. You don’t need to go crazy with samples, but it’s worth doing a couple, especially if you have a large garden or multiple. 

  1. Place your soil sample in the jar. It should be about 1/3 of the way full. 
  2. Fill the jar almost to the top with water.
  3. Shake thoroughly for a couple of minutes. 
  4. Place the jar aside until everything settles. This may take several hours.

When you return to your jar, you’ll immediately notice that it has separated into layers. The bottom layer will be sand. Sand particles are larger and heavier, so they settle out first. The layer above the sand will be silt with slightly larger particles, and the top layer will be clay with very fine particles. You may also see some organic matter floating at the top.

Jar Test for Soil Texture DiagramNow you can begin measuring. If it’s helpful, mark the edges of the layers with your marker. Then measure the total height (not including water) and the height of each layer. Once you’ve got these measurements, you can calculate the percentage of each.

% Sand = (height of sand / total height) x 100

% Silt= (height of silt / total height) x 100

% Clay = (height of clay / total height) x 100

Now you can use this handy chart from the USDA to find your soil type based on the percentages. 

Soil Texture Chart from USDAFor example, if you got 60% clay, 20% silt, and 20% sand; you have clay soils.

Let’s say you got 15% clay, 15% silt, and 70% sand; you have sandy loam soils.

You can also use the NRCS Soil Texture Calculator.

What Does My Soil Texture Mean?

Different soil types behave differently.

Clay Soils

Soils higher in clay tend to be high in nutrients and hold water well. Unfortunately, they can also be hard to dig in, too dense for large roots to grow, and tend to become waterlogged.

Sandy Soils

Sandy soils are very easy to dig in and allow for easy growth of large roots (think big carrots). They also drain well and warm up quickly in the spring. Unfortunately, sandy soil doesn’t hold nutrients or water well, meaning plants grown in them may suffer from nutrient deficiencies and drought.

Silty Soils

Silty soils are in between sand and clay. They tend to have more nutrients than sandy soils and hold water better but are still easier to cultivate and dig than clay soil. Unfortunately, silty soils compact easily and tend to form a crust. They also have poor water filtration. 

How Do I Change My Soil Texture?

Most of us would love it if we got ‘loam’ as a result, but it’s unlikely we will. Our region and the land’s history will largely determine the soil we get to begin working with. 

The best amendment for any soil type is organic matter. You can add organic matter to your soil through composting, cover cropping, mulching, and manures. 

Be careful if you decide to add other amendments like sand or gypsum. These can make soil problems worse when added incorrectly. 

There’s a lot to learn about soil, but understanding soil texture is an excellent start to improving your garden. Use the jar test to learn about your soil texture today!

Garden Advice

6 Ways to Improve Soil Fertility

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As grocery, fertilizer, and other prices continue to rise, many backyard gardeners are digging deep to grow their own food. Whether you’ve been gardening for 20 years or planted your first plot this spring, maintaining or building healthy, fertile soil is probably a top concern. If you’re on a budget, purchasing fertilizer or other organic garden amendments can be a strain or even out of reach entirely. Thankfully, there are a few affordable or even free ways to improve soil fertility. 

Start composting. 

In a previous post, I referred to compost as black gold, and I wholeheartedly believe that good finished compost is one of the best garden amendments you can have. It adds fertility, improves soil structure, encourages beneficial fungi and bacteria, and more. Composting also helps keep unnecessary items out of landfills. 

Here are a few of the items you can compost and keep out of a landfill:

  • Vegetable Scraps
  • Stale or Moldy Bread, Crackers, Chips, etc.
  • Egg Shells
  • Grass Clippings
  • Coffee Grounds
  • Tea and Tea Bags
  • Leaves

If you want to learn more about composting from what bin or system to use, maintaining your compost, and what to put in it, visit our post, Black Gold: Making Compost.

Water with compost, comfrey, grass-clipping, or manure tea.

If your plants need a fast-acting boost, watering with a bit of one of these DIY liquid fertilizers may do the trick. It may sound a little gross and can be a bit smelly, but it’s easy to do and worth it!

All you need is compost, comfrey leaves, grass clippings, or manure, a five-gallon bucket or another similar container, water, and some material for filtering like an old pillowcase or cheesecloth. 

Get the details from our post, DIY Compost Tea.

Bag and use your grass clippings.

While I’m all for going no-mow whenever you can and using alternatives like wildflower plantings in place of lawns, I do understand that mowing some areas is nice or even necessary. Whether you’re mowing around your garden to keep the grass from creeping in, a play area for your kids, or just around your home, you can put those grass clippings to good use!

A mower with a bagger will allow you to collect and use grass clipping as mulch or ingredients in compost or liquid fertilizer. However, you may not want to bag your clippings all the time. Just like grass clipping add fertility to your garden, they help keep your yard fertile and grass looking nice as well.Cover Crops to Improve Soil Fertility

Grow cover crops. 

Cover crops aren’t a quick fix, nor are they free, but I think their benefits still outweigh their negatives. Cover crops add fertility and organic matter to the soil, help keep down weeds, provide habitat for pollinators and other beneficial insects, and prevent erosion. They’re also more affordable than buying fertilizer over the long term. 

Different cover crop species come with different benefits, and you may want to do a bit of research before selecting one. 

Some cover crops like buckwheat are “winter-kill,” meaning they die back with frost. Some no-till gardeners use these as mulch for the following spring. Just rake the dead plant material back to seed or transplant your crops.

Clover and other cover crops in the legume family are nitrogen-fixers meaning that they take nitrogen from the air and add it to the soil as they grow. You can read more about how nitrogen fixation works in our post, What’s a Nitrogen Fixer?

If you have a hardpan or compacted soil, you may want to look into cover crops like Deep-Till radishes. These and other large rooted, tough cover crops will help break up compacted soil and hardpan, aerate the soil, add organic matter and allow water to soak in faster.

Here are a few great cover crop options:

While many cover crops are planted in a rotation, leaving beds free of crops for a year or in seasons when beds are not in use, there is another great option, especially for no-till gardeners. You can grow a crop like white clover in the paths between permanent beds. White clover will tolerate being walked on and mowed, providing a great path and source of mulch.

Look for people getting rid of “mulch hay” or straw.

Sometimes, you can find old or “mulch” hay or straw listed for cheap or free on sites like Facebook Marketplace. Often, these are bails that have gotten wet, moldy, or are just no longer fit for animal feed or bedding, but they’re perfect for the garden! 

Use old hay or straw to create lasagna gardens, mulch around plants, add to your compost, or create hugelkultur mounds.

Talk to the farmer you’re purchasing or getting the hay from and make sure it’s not from a field that has been treated with herbicides. Some folks also don’t like using hay because it contains weed seeds. Straw is the stalks from a wheat harvest and is generally free of seeds.Woodchips for Soil Fertility

Search for free wood chips.

Wood chips are another great source of organic matter and work well as a mulch, helping keep the soil cool and moist and blocking weeds. They’re slower to break down than other mulches like grass clippings, hay, or straw but will eventually turn into good quality soil. They’re also an excellent habitat for beneficial insects.

It’s often easy to find free wood chips in the summer when power companies are cutting trees and limbs away from power lines. Contact your local company or stop and ask workers you see. Sometimes, they may even be willing to dump a whole truckload at your home for free if they’re working nearby. Occasionally, local garden or hardware stores will source wood chips from electric companies, and you can go and fill coats or a truck for cheap or free. 

Avoid using the dyed black or red wood chips that come in bags from hardware or big box stores. These aren’t organic and are generally much more expensive.

Improving your garden starts with the soil. Using these methods and amendments, you can add fertility to your soil on any budget. They’re great for your garden, good for the environment, and generally pretty simple. How do you add fertility to your organic garden?