Testing soil to find out what it lacks or has can save any gardener a substantial amount of money. Soil which is acidic for example would need fertilizer that would lessen it's acidity. Or if you don't want that you can do some research and plant only vegetables which would grow in acidic soil. Someone new to gardening would ask, what would it cost? Not much. You can actually do it yourself. Take a look at the article linked to below. Log In Learning as much as you can about your soil will help you decide what needs to be done to make it ideal for the plants you want to grow.
Thanks for sharing the link. I agree that the soil should be tested to make sure your plants grow their best and are able to have their full nutritional value. I also check the soil for earth worms as they are a sign of healthy soil. Their castings put nitrogen into the soil.
I didn't know that about earthworms Andrea, thank you for that. Actually, I may have known that when I was kid but I forgot about it long ago. We used to fish and we got earthworms from near the riverbank to use as bait. We weren't very serious about fishing, it was more about relaxing, but I remember thinking how fresh the soil there smelled.
I have no penchant for gardening but I love to harvest. Fortunately I have a husband who's got a green thumb and he tests the soil himself by just analyzing the look. More often, he would mix the soil with another type that he buys or gets from the nearby vacant lots. Sometimes he creates garden soil himself.
I've had plants for years, but mainly in container gardens, so garden soil wasn't a big consideration for me. I have noticed that the soil here is very sandy (no surprise, I guess, since I live near the beach), but also doesn't seem consistent from one part of the yard to another, so perhaps people trucked in some sand in the past. I'm glad you posted this link, so now I can play around with the soil in the yards, to see what I have to do to improve it, since my dwarf lemon tree didn't flourish.
