What's In Your Soil?

Great gardening begins with great soil. In our Urban environment many factors may affect soil health, but knowing what’s in your soil may be the best place to start in creating your garden master piece. It is important to understand that each time you displace soil to plant something or build a structure, which displaces the soil, it also displaces the natural order of compost, soil, clay and filtering substratum. In addition, Urban soils often have compaction problems which compress the soil and destroy it’s natural absorption ability. With home owners dumping billions of dollars of pesticides/herbicides on their lawns and garden’s how can, you, be sure what elements your soil needs? One way to know for sure what lies beneath is to send your soil sample to be tested. A&L Great Lakes Laboratories offers a $20 soil analysis, which will not only give you a detailed description of your soils condition, but will also offer a detailed plan for amending your soil. Other labs are listed on the http://urbanext.illinois.edu/soiltest website.

The Garden Nanny at Blooming Rails will help you identify organic solutions which will help amend or condition your soil based off the recommendations from the lab or alternatively we can use a soil meter, but these results are not as accurate as a lab testing. Please note, it can take 8 inches of new compost to equal 1 inch of added soil the following year. The best advantage to achieving healthy soil is that it can reduce and possibly eliminate the need for pesticides and herbicides. Here is how to take your sample:

If you have several different types of planting zones within your yard, several samples will be needed. For example; if you have an area heavy in pine trees, will need to be tested separately from a vegetable garden without any nearby trees. Soil samples are best achieved above 50 degrees, and should be repeated every five years or when trouble signs occur, such as poor plant health or invasive weed outbreaks.

Obtain a soil testing bag from the testing laboratory. Some labs prefer paper bags as it allows proper ventilation for the tested area, other labs require you to dry out the samples prior to mailing them to the lab.

1. Dig a hole with a spade or trowel, 3 inches to test for areas to be planted with sod, 6 – 8 inches for flower or vegetable gardens, or 12 inches for trees.
2. Repeat this procedure in at least 8 scattered spots within the testing sample (don’t mix different planting zones – i.e. vegetable gardens and azalea gardens under pine trees)
3. Slice the soil from the edge of the hole, retrieving a sample down the entire length of the desired testing area into a clean bucket. Mix the samples from the spots within each specific zone.
4. Clean the soil sample of any roots, plants or large organic matter.
5. Air dry soil on a clean sheet of paper, and then lift edges creating a funnel so you can pour directly into soil sample bag. Usually a ½ pint of soil is all the lab will need.
6. Label each bag with location and what will be planted, such as “perennial garden by back deck”, “azalea garden under pine trees”, “rose garden by rock garden”, “vegetable garden by front swing set”
7. Mark name and return address on bag.
8. Pack in a well protected box to prevent breakage or water infiltration. Send off with fee and contact information.

Testing the soil in your yard is a simple and inexpensive method to discover what nutrients are missing or chemical toxins are building up in your dirt... you may be surprised.