Test the soil your plants will be growing in. Your Texas A & M University offers a fairly inexpensive soil testing service that provides you with much more information then a home test ever will. In addition to the soil pH and levels of Calcium and Magnesium and ratio of Ca and MG that test should include levels of Phosphorus and Potash, maybe some others.
In addition you should want to know how much organic matter is in the soil and these simple soil tests can be of some help,
1) Structure. From that soil sample put enough of the rest to make a 4 inch level in a clear 1 quart jar, with a tight fitting lid. Fill that jar with water and replace the lid, tightly. Shake the jar vigorously and then let it stand for 24 hours. Your soil will settle out according to soil particle size and weight. A good loam will have about 1-3/4 inch (about 45%) of sand on the bottom. about 1 inch (about 25%) of silt next, about 1 inch (25%) of clay above that, and about 1/4 inch (about 5%) of organic matter on the top.

2) Drainage. Dig a hole 1 foot square and 1 foot deep and fill that with water. After that water drains away refill the hole with more water and time how long it takes that to drain away. Anything less than 2 hours and your soil drains� too quickly and needs more organic matter to slow that drainage down. Anything over 6 hours and the soil drains too slowly and needs lots of organic matter to speed it up.

3) Tilth. Take a handful of your slightly damp soil and squeeze it tightly. When the pressure is released the soil should hold together in that clump, but when poked with a finger that clump should fall apart.

4) Smell. What does your soil smell like? A pleasant, rich earthy odor? Putrid, offensive, repugnant odor? The more organic matter in your soil the more active the soil bacteria will be and the nicer your soil will smell.

5) Life. How many earthworms per shovel full were there? 5 or more indicates a pretty healthy soil. Fewer than 5, according to the Natural Resources Conservation Service, indicates a soil that is not healthy.

Kimmser. Thanks for all the information! And great tests to do on my own.

I just have two different areas of concern. I suppose I could do two tests!! One on the unadulterated native soil, and one on the compost/imported soil/mulch blend I have achieved in the raised beds.

I am trying to plant more roses in the yard and median areas, and it won't have benefit of imported soil, only native and compost blend with a bit of expanded shale. But then after a year of two, growing into pure native 'decent' clay that has been here forever, and probably had the benefit of years of natural composting.

Thanks, I feel my fertilizing/improving efforts are just a stab in the dark with out this testing!

Interesting forum, thanks for your input!

If you have more than one area like that it is certainly worth testing each separately. And do composite sampling when you do it. That is, take a scoop from several random spots in the area to be tested and mix them up well in a bucket. Make sure clumps are broken up so all the pieces are pea sized or smaller. Then fill a clean jar. The lab only uses a few grams out of the jar, so it needs to be homogenized well.

Your soil is fine as it is, without a soil test, unless your testing for toxins. The universities here in Texas always give the same recomendation, you are low in nitrogen. I very much disagree with using nitrogenous salts on our type of soil. Google the Texas Plant Lab, which uses co2 rather than acids in their soil tests. Get two opinions, the university test and this private, organic company test. Anyways, this acid totally skews the results, it's faulty science if your not a farmer with perpetually low carbon soil. Your soil is made up of dead sea life, it was once the bottom of an ocean, it's extremely rich and very sensitive. It's got every nutruient on the planet, it just needs to be unlocked and rotting plant material, sugars, and rock powders are all that are called for if your idea is to go optimal. The trick to our soil is irrigating it properly, deep and infreqent, watch the signs the plants give you and ignore a regular watering schedule. Otherwise, you squeeze the oxygen right out of it and you wonder what you're doing wrong.

Mackel

Garden Rant: Whatever Felder Rushing's "Slow Gardening" is, I'm fer it!

statements like these:

âÂÂYou donâÂÂt have to have your soil tested.âÂÂ

Honestly, that might be right for 'most' of the soil in Dallas, but we don't really have any idea what ilovemyroses' soil is really like. What's been imported or added to it. What if it's overloaded with phosphorus from too much fertilizer? Or the pH is way off for some reason? This is why I don't tell people not to get a test if they want one.

I am beginning to think the extra few $ for the N test is not worth it, though, because it *does* change seasonally and it also sounds like everyone gets the same recommendation - add N.

Organic matter, pH, P and K, and Ca, Mg and other micronutrients would be the tests I would run.

Pure, unadulterated vegetative finished compost is always the answer on an tested or untested soil. At first, do no harm...and this is the second thing the universities tell ya automatically in Texas- not enough carbon...sheesh...the schools nowadays...

Mackel

Wow. Good insight all. I live in the park cities in a 80+ year old home. Previous owners for past many years did no gardening. And probably that is good. No chemicals I'd bet.

Idk, I'm just trying to do it right. And appreciate the input.

Tox. Great advise on just paying for one sample. I'll order it as you specified.

Mack.. It'll probably come as you say regarding nitrogen. But I think I'll investigate.

Kimm. I appreciate the drainage test, I think that is an issue in some areas, but I've never known how to find out.

What are ya a politishan? You have two choices- hardcore organic or not- gurantee my 'maters are bigger 'n yurz with less water if you're buying that salts in a Texas soil will bring *maximum* results...We'll exchange pics over the years...and...I'll accept kudos *later on*...hehehe...

Mackel

Why would anyone have a soil test done?
1. To know what nutrients were in the soil and readily available to the plants.
2. So the gardener would not need to spend money, unnecessarily, on "fertilizers" that are not needed.
3. So the gardener can know about the soil pH and the balance between the soils Calcium and Magnesium.
4. So the gardener does not spend money, unnecessarily, on some kind of lime that may not correct the problem but can get the right lime.
5. Because knowledge, knowing, is always better than ignorance. "scientia potentia est".

One consideration you can't fertilize before the test or you will throw it off. I don't know how long you have to wait after feeding the garden.

Mackel re soil in Texas, do you think they are not really testing the soil and just sending the same forum letter out? Are soils in Texas all low nitrogen? If you create a sample with a lot of compost as a test, will be come back low nitrogen? If you mixed up homemade compost or maybe coffee grounds in your sample would be come back high or normal nitrogen? Is it worth creating a test for them?

Kimmsr, did you read how the two tests give different results? Did you read where the reccomendation is to get two opinions? You got a loose cannon, man, there's never any imbalance that calls for putting lime into an alkaline soil...please, practice "Zen in the Garden", and breathe deep... the magical compost...focus...I thankyou in advance...

Mackel

Re the Felder Rushing Slow Gardening rant, I certainly endorse slow gardening over 'instant makeovers'. However, many of us are on recently disturbed land - suburban yards for example - soil that has undergone rapid, dramatic and even traumatic change. Good soil takes years, but there is no reason to do it unaware of the starting conditions, which are often really out of whack. Even older ground can be too high or low in something due to years of unbalanced gardening. Soil tests aren't everything, but they can tell you things.

I confess I didn't Google the Texas Lab, it's time consuming enough to sift through these threads and understand what people are saying without having to look up all their references. If it's that important, maybe you can quote it or at least put a link in your post.

The failure here is not google, it's that anybody that poses as a soil advisor should be well familiar with soil testing theory already, before making any reccomendations about amendments. These different approaches illustrate the fundamental question mankind faces in regards to dirt- can man outwit nature with synthetics, or can we harness nature and surpass the slippery approach? You shouldn't have to google, TC, to know already there is a strong acid and weak acid test for soils. Harumphhh....

Mackel

Perhaps. I made no recommendations about amendments though. You told her not to get a test at all. Why are you arguing about which kind she should get?

You might be a soil genius, but your know it all attitude puts people off.

I think people post to hear themselves. I find ignorant, counter effective advice daily. It intrigues the teacher in me. This forum is functionally a social group and not much more. I'm probably codependent since I never divorced. You may be codependent, you drift in and out of responding to posts directed at you, at kimmsr, and to a general audience. You challenge, I respond. What's missing? I don't hate anybody, TC, are you feeling something- it's you. I'm me. The most important thing to me is integrity. I grew up a military man's son.

Mackel

I've been following this forum and others many years before the first post. There's not a single bit of new information here...What can I learn now? I have google, and lots of textbooks, send me on my mission, TC. Where do people that know their sh*t post at?

Mackel

Ninety percent of the time I have no clue what you are talking about or where you are coming from Mackel so I know I can't help you. Sorry.

Lloyd

I for one find Tox to be exceedingly knowledgeable and an invaluable resource for folks who use this board. (And one hell of a nice person to boot). Your attitude is off-putting.

Well, you should be able to understand this- I could spend the next three months correcting every cockamamy piece of info for the public's perusal posted here, even you've shown your old fashioned ways that science has discredited, ammending a planting hole for a tree, but people just don't like it in today's world when you tell them, no. And I challenge anybody to take a wasted piece of dirt, turn it into a lush tropical paradise, that needs less irrigation, no poison of any sort, no oil biproduct whatsoever, with higher yield and no disease...do it, and then talk...I've tried it all, I've tried every possible method ever suggested to grow a superior garden and I've come to conclude, most people freely give counterproductive nonsense advice. I would never do that. That causes people losses that are sometimes big bucks... Why, you answer the question, Lloyd. Why do people do that to others?

Mackel

Really, this whole mess is an embarrassment for the forum when people visit looking for advice.

>>I think people post to hear themselves.

Broad brush, don't you think? I post to try to help people. I enjoy helping people if I can.

>I find ignorant, counter effective advice daily. It intrigues the teacher in me.

Welcome to the interwebs. So, no comment on the statement that you come on a bit too strong? You seem to have an overdeveloped sense of your own correctness and authority in all things soil related. I admit I'm not perfect, but I don't see the same in your posts.

>This forum is functionally a social group and not much more.

I disagree. There is a lot of information and viewpoints here as well as experiences from the trenches. But, if it's too social for you and isn't 'where people post who know their $h!t', no one's forcing you to read it.

>I'm probably codependent since I never divorced. You may be codependent, you drift in and out of responding to posts directed at you, at kimmsr, and to a general audience. You challenge, I respond. What's missing?

That's the nature of a discussion forum. We talk among ourselves and to the general audience. No idea what the codependency stuff is about here, I don't see how it's relevant to where my posts are directed. By the way, by responding to me directly, aren't you 'drifting'? :-]

>I don't hate anybody, TC, are you feeling something- it's you.

I never suggested you did or even used the word. I meant you come across as arrogant and dismissive, at least in writing.

As always, my attitude is "For Pete's sake, it's only a compost forum!"

Before you ever open your mouth to a stranger, one should damn well know what the facts are- common courtesy.

Mackel

And that's we way it is, if you don't want to be called out, until I'm able to get out of bed in a week or two.

Mackel

I apologize to the OP for what has happened here.

Lloyd

Just make sure it doesn't happen again by standing up when someone suggests lime in a conversation with a woman with a soil pH close to Eight. When it takes three entire years of rainfall to get anything to grow in her soil again, kiss her ring Lloyd.

We are all making a huge assumption to even consider that mackel has the knowledge base from which to issue his pronouncements. Would I take what he has to 'share' as the gospel? No way!! Much of what he spouts is contradictory to what recognized soil scientists contend and all of it is presented in a way that is so offensive that it is hard to even filter out what there is of value.

I think people post to hear themselves. In which case I am thinking mackel must really enjoy his own pearls of wisdom since he posts so flippin' often! And cuz they are being ignored/wasted on the rest of us.

You have a degree in horticulture, gg, you sell stuff... I have a degree in biology. I study stuff. You don't have the background nor education to demonstrate a tertiary knowledge of soil science, I'll call you on it right now.

Hey, you go take eight hours of biochemistry and organic chemistry each first, then make fantasitc statements, wouldya couldya. Maybe, maybe not. But you're too full of vinegar right now to know it.

You also have a long history of getting into it with other posters, I'd say you and kimmsr have been guilty of that over the years more than anybody. Let her rip!

When you two go after EACH other, I often learn things that I didn't know before...

Mackel

What a sad mess. Kimmsr never even recommended lime... :-\

Kimmsr said,

"4. So the gardener does not spend money, unnecessarily, on some kind of lime that may not correct the problem but can get the right lime."-

There is no right lime. Now the thought of lime is in the newcomer's head. A lot of yankees come down here and lime the soil, and they are very sad cuz it ruins the garden for a few years. It's limey soil from the bottom of an ancient ocean..

This throws the newcomer off for the product even being mentioned, and I can go back and show that these types of comments are clustered amongst a very tiny number of posters.

It's all about not offering helpful specifics, putting on useless airs, and sprinkling pixie dust everywhere.. Why even mention lime? To show you know enough to be dangerous? And whatever happened to men, manning up?

I say, practice "Zen in the Garden", and listen to what the newcomer is saying and know the facts first... cuz they ain't gonna know what terminology, quirks, and motives (boredom?) one has, that's why they are relying on complete strangers with a question. Common courtesy demands concision in this type of exchange, no?...maybe so...

Mackel

Lets see, now. My soil is deficient in Magnesium so putting down Calcitic Lime is not going to help that in any way, but Dolomitic Lime will and that is what the soil scientists around here do recommend. Since the only way to know which of those types of lime I need is with a good, reliable soil test which will also guide me in how much to apply.

Man Up, she lives in Dallas. You are not the subject, just the future topic of further study...hehehe...the OP is...and her questions...a strong acid test in our soil such as our universities offer and which you reccomend will not give accurate results once a certain threshold of organic matter is present in the soil...so, you'll never know what an alkaline soil is capable of until then, later, you can more accurately and importantly, calculate for biologically available nutrients using the weak acid test, not the gross percentages of nutrients present, which are locked up to varying degrees due to a lack of carbon...so the chicken does come before the egg in this example...but you didn't know that cuz ya live near Canada (Neverland ehh?)...

Mackel

Except that he was actually explaining to YOU all the general reasons a person should get a soil test in the first place. Right after you said she didn't need one. You created this entire drama yourself.

I said, "Your soil is fine as it is, without a soil test, unless your testing for toxins"- I'll stand by that statement. Now it's your turn. Play the advocate. Why is that statement valid in an oceanic clay?

Mackel

Well, for one thing, you assume what kind of soil she has, but there is really no way to know what this person actually has in their backyard. In fact, her original post stipulated that soil was imported.

Quotes are from wikipedia under the subject of "Vertisols"...The brackets are comments of my own regarding vertisols, which are two percent of the world's soils, and blanket DFW... too tired to grab a textbook-

"In both the FAO and USA soil taxonomy, a vertisol is a soil in which there is a high content of expansive clay known as montmorillonite that forms deep cracks in drier seasons or years. Alternate shrinking and swelling causes self-mulching, where the soil material consistently mixes itself, causing vertisols to have an extremely deep A horizon and no B horizon. (A soil with no B horizon is called an A/C soil). This heaving of the underlying material to the surface often creates a microrelief known as gilgai."-

[the gilgai, which are deep microcracks in the soil, swallow up foreign surface soils. The closest non-vertisol source for Dallas is approximately a four hour round trip...]

"...natural vegetation of vertisols is grassland, savanna, or grassy woodland."

"Vertisols typically form from highly basic rocks, such as basalt, in climates that are seasonally humid or subject to erratic droughts and floods, or to impeded drainage. Depending on the parent material and the climate, they can range from grey or red to the more familiar deep black..."

Even with a huge amount of far away foreign soil, you're not going to be able to change the pH. It's thousands of feet thick. It'll swaller you up, too, TC. Come to Texas, son. Bring the Kentucky Bourbon.

Mackel