Tag Archives: soil building

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?

Garden Advice

Improving Heavy Clay Soils

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Gardeners rarely begin their journey with a plot of perfect soil, but it’s something we all dream about. In the Southeast, many gardeners have to work with heavy clay soils. While clay soil is rich in minerals and many nutrients, it’s prone to compaction, doesn’t drain well in wet weather, and doesn’t hold water well during droughts. Growing certain root crops like large carrot varieties can be especially tough.

Clay soils are a great foundation to improve on. Here are a few organic methods to improve your heavy clay soil. 

Practice No-Till (or minimal-till) Agriculture

It may sound counterintuitive, but tilling can make clay soils worse. Tilling increases soil compaction and kills beneficial fungi and micro-organisms. 

Cover Crops

Cover crops add nutrients and organic matter to the soil. Great choices for improving clay soils include buckwheat, clover, and wheat. Clover has the benefit of being a nitrogen-fixing legume, meaning that through a symbiotic relationship with bacteria, it captures nitrogen from the air and adds it to the soil.

You may also want to mix in large or deep-rooted cover crops like daikon radishes, lava beans, and alfalfa. These crops help break up compacted soil and create channels for air and water as their roots decompose.

Chop & Drop

You can also use a method commonly used by permaculturalists called “chop and drop.” This method involves growing crops like comfrey, pigeon peas, moringa, sun hemp, and sorghum. These crops are chopped and dropped on the soil to decompose. Comfrey is a popular choice for this in perennial gardens and fruit tree guilds.

Broadfork

Broadforking your soil is a great way to loosen soil without disturbing the layers or structure. It helps mitigate compaction and preserve beneficial organisms and fungi in the soil. 

Create Permanent Beds

Even just walking on your garden soil can cause severe compaction. Creating permanent beds that you don’t till, step on, or use machinery will help make light, fluffy soil. 

Use Terraces or Swales

If your property has heavy clay soil and a slope, you’ll probably deal with water issues. Planting in rows or terraces that are perpendicular to the slope of the land will help slow down the water in your garden and reduce erosion issues. Swales built on contours take this further and are a great way to catch large amounts of rainwater, allowing your plants to access it slowly, even on significant slopes. 

Spread Compost

Finished compost is the quickest way to beef up the organic matter in your soil. Adding a couple of inches of compost to each bed adds nutrients, improves water retention and drainage, and lightens the soil.

Use Mulch

Mulch helps block weeds, hold moisture, and keep soil temperatures cool. It also adds a lot of organic matter to your soil as it decomposes. Any organic mulch can help improve your clay soils, including straw, leaves, grass clippings, woodchips, and hay. Keep in mind that hay tends to have a lot of weed seeds.

Grow Varieties Adapted to Heavy Clay Soils

Improving clay soils isn’t something that happens overnight, especially in large gardens. If you’re planting in a garden with heavy clay soils this year, try some varieties that are adapted to these conditions.

  • Chantey Red Core Carrots
    This blocky, broad-shouldered variety with a blunt tip is well-suited to growing in clay. It was introduced from France in the 1800s.
  • Danvers 126 Carrots
    These carrots taper to a blunt point and are especially suited to growing in clay soil. The strong tops aid harvesting.
  • Everona Large Green Tomatillo
    These plants produce large, tasty tomatillos and thrive even in heavy clay soil and drought.  Seed collected by Barbara Rosholdt from tomatillos planted by Mexican workers at the Everona sheep dairy near Unionville, VA. Introduced in 2008 by SESE.
  • McCormack’s Blue Dent
    This beautiful dent corn makes delicious light blue flour and is especially suited to the eastern U.S., clay soils, and drought-prone areas. Introduced in 1994 by SESE. Bred by Dr. Jeff McCormack from a cross between Hickory King and an unnamed heirloom blue dent.
  • Oxheart Carrots
    A good carrot choice for shallow or heavy clay soils that most carrots don’t like. Dating to 1884, this variety produces thick, sweet “oxheart”-shaped carrots, 5-6 in. long and 3-4 in. wide, weighing up to a pound!
  • Pike Muskmelon
    Bred specially for growing in unirrigated clay soil, this vigorous melon has outstanding flavor and good disease-resistant. Introduced in 1935, Aaron Pike of Pike & Young Seeds; seedstock supplied to SESE by Aaron Pike’s niece.
  • Tennessee Red Valencia Peanuts
    This pre-1930 produces rich, sweet peanuts with red skins. It’s easy to grow without hilling, even in clay soils.
  • Texas Gourdseed Corn
    Originally brought to south Texas by German farmers who migrated from Appalachia during the late 19th century, this variety withstands drought and does well in clay soil. In south Texas, this is considered to be the best choice for tortilla flour.
  • Turga Parsnip
    This Hungarian heirloom produces short, stout roots that are good for heavy clay soils.
  • Southern Peas (Cowpeas)
    These productive peas are well-adapted to poor soils and drought. We carry 16 varieties at SESE.