Soil Testing – Part 2

As part of the Soil Management course, we learned how to determine what type of soil texture and structure we have.  We used samples in the class to look at sand, clay and silty soils.  So whilst I had a good lot of soil (from the sampling) on hand I decided to see what I had.

You take a small palm full of soil and wet it – if you can form a snake-like structure that doesn’t crack when it is bent – you have clay soil.  That is basically what I have – maybe a bit of silt in there too, since it did crack a little.  I used to think that clay soil was all bad, but reading up on it, it seems that clay soils have an advantage (if you can get them to drain) since they have a lot of negatively charged sites for nutrients to adsorb onto.  So that made me happier!