The City Girl's Guide to Country Gardening Lesson 12: Sussing Out Your Soil

After you've been gardening for a little while, I've noticed that people start talking dirty — as in, garden dirt. They want to know what kind of soil you have and what you're doing about it (or how you're "amending" it, which always sounds to me like you're apologizing for your soil all the time).

Of course, this sends me into a panic, because as far as I know, I've just got well, dirt out there. I have noticed that in some beds, the soil seems really sandy and in other beds, it's more like clay packed with rocks. But I had no idea that this might impact how well things will grow until I emailed with Amy of GreenGardenista.com.

She suggests using her Trowel Method to figure out what kind of soil you have, and what other nutrients it might need:

1. Pick an area of the garden or lawn, and picture a flat triangle laying on the turf, with sides about 4 or 5 inches long. 2. Dig straight down with a hand trowel on these imaginary triangle sides, and pop up what should be a solid chunk of soil, making sure to try and preserve the order of the layers of soil. 3. Take a look at the layers present in the soil. What do you see? Do you see predominantly sand, clay, great topsoil, or rock?

Depending on what your soil is all about, check out these links for improving sandy soil, improving clay soil, making good soil out of bad, and why slacking off in the garden is the best way to get great soil.

And when in doubt: Amy says, "The addition of some topsoil, compost, or other organic product can never hurt, and that things like mulch can make a long term difference in the health and nutrition available to your plants over time as things decompose."