Your child can be a soil scientist! Did you know that your young scientist can test their soil and, with your help, adjust its pH and nutrient levels to grow the best garden possible?
Why Should You Get Your Soil Tested?
Getting your soil tested gives you specific data on your soil and its qualities such as:
pH - Whether your soil is more acidic (<7) or more alkaline (>7)
Nutrient Concentrations - Soil testing gives you the concentration in ppm (parts per million) of different important nutrients such as Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium.
Now, while you have this information, what should you even do with it? Soil tests typically give a report as well as to what you need to do to your soil to make it better based on what you indicate that you are using the soil for.
Type and Quantity of Lime to add to your soil
Nutrients you need to add
Amount of fertilizer you need to add to the soil
One aspect to emphasize is that you are fertilizing the SOIL, not the plants. Soil is the basis for a healthy garden, so you shouldn't treat it as a vessel for a plant. Instead, it should be treated as its own "living" being to maintain.
How to Get Your Soil Tested
Obtain a soil testing kit online from soilkit.com. You'll have to register your kit ID online before using it.
Pick a representative area of your garden for sampling
Pick somewhere not recently fertilized, irrigated, burned, or especially impacted by pests
Using a sampling tube or trowel, dig a 3 in. v-shaped hole and take a slab off the side and put it into a bucket
Repeat this 14 more times in the area, mixing the slabs of dirt together in the bucket
Put a pint of the mixed sample into the soil sample bag
Fill out the proper forms from your county extension office and soil testing lab website and mail off your sample following the instructions
Samples can take a few weeks to process before getting the results back to you.
If you want to learn more about soil qualities and testing, take a look at these articles!
Thank you for reading!
Please reach out if you have any questions or concerns by clicking here! Have a wonderful day!
-Leah Brooks
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