You can put in a cement walkway or color the paving bricks that you just completed with a little ranging, right? Not quite. A cement walkway is not a good choice of outdoor decor, at least not for me. I would much rather have a gently curved path, covered in plants, each one following the path as I made my way to the garden behind my house. Of course, I had to have plants – that was another reason for my curving path, the desire to seek out and cling to beautiful things. My garden is very near the house – it is the end of my steeple, so the path makes sense. My lawn is a conglomeration of grass, herbaceous plants, a few fruit trees, vines, and mostly weeds. Some of the dirt is big and Some of the plants are tall and graceful. For example, I have the jagged I have ever seen in the center of my lawn. Another one is the catmint. My kids squirrel spend a lot of time in the old cabbage patch. Well, we keep the cabbage picked just for him. He doesn’t have enough of his own food from our garden, so whenever he can get a bit of cabbage, he enjoys it so much, he pushes it into our garden. He is just as happy digging right through the roots of the cabbage, as he is when he gets to eat out of it.
The other day I was weeding my garden and I was complains about how difficult it was to get grass to grow. I know that with experience, a well-planned garden is easy to care for. It is just that, in my case, preening was not part of the plan. Anyway, I kept notes about my progress and that’s when I thought, “Wait a minute, I’ve never thought about this before.” I realized that in order to have a successful garden, you need to think about where you are starting from. And in order to think about where you are starting from, you need to know what kind of soil you have. Is it clay, sandy, or sandy loam? And does it have acidity? And what is the acidity – good or bad?
By knowing the soil’s composition, you can know how to adjust the soil so that your plants will have the best chance to succeed. Soil is made up of three different parts: clay, sand and silt. Clay is the least desirable soil type, because it is made up of very small particles and these particles stick together which causes real difficulty when you are trying to aerate or even just sprinkle water on the soil. Sand is a slightly more attractive soil type, but because it is much larger than clay, it doesn’t stick together very well and so cardinal directions are to avoid walking on it when it is wet. You will find that the best type of soil is loam — at least three inches deep. But it is impossible to grow much in the middle of clay and so you will have to figure out how to make it work.
To figure out what kind of soil you have, here is a soil analysis example. In this example, the soil consists of 40% sand, 40% silt, and 20% clay. classified as “sandy” because the soil is made up of particles that are smooth and large, loam classified as “loamy” because it is made up of particles that are uneven and small, and “clay” because it is made up of tiny particles that are clumpish and permanent. You can take a random handful of the loam and make a ball with it, then gently squeeze it. If you have silt particles, the soil will feel sticky and shiney, if you have sand particles, they will feel gritty and dirty. To the sample that you have previously added, add a little more soil. If this is a clump, carefully break it up with your hands. A good way to determine how much of each soil type you have is to do a soil test. You can buy inexpensive soil test kits at virtually any retail gardening store. In many cases, the sample will be sent to a lab, and a detailed analysis will be sent to your state’s extension services and you will be told what amendments you need to add containing all of the trace elements, nutrients and minerals that your plants will require for at least one year. Some will even send you a pH test and a nutrient analysis. Soil test instructions for the test can be found at your local extension service’s website, or you can read them online.
