Garden soil testing is essential for soil improvement

Garden soil testing lets you identify any soil problems and develop reliable ways of dealing with them. However, it is a topic many people find confusing so we will try to demystify it for you.

The process begins with a sample and this is perhaps the most important aspect of any test. After all, the test results can never be any better than the sample you collect.

The best thing is to start by reading some reliable guidelines on collecting garden soil samples for testing.

What to Look for

There are many laboratories and many different tests on the market, so it is important to choose carefully.

If we were to classify laboratories into different groups, the first would be those owned and operated by fertilizer companies, government bodies and universities. There is no question that the results from these labs will be accurate, but what about the recommendations they give you?

A soil test is not just a page or two of numbers, you get one because you want to know what you should do in the garden. For whatever reason, most of the laboratories in this first group will aim for the 'cheap and simple' approach. That is, they will do only a few tests for certain plant nutrients and recommend application of only a limited range of fertilizers.

These tests will be cheap and easy to read, but they will do little to help you improve your soil. They are also often only suited to a few specific types of farms in one geographic region. Almost none of the labs in this group will do garden soil testing.

The next group are the independent or alternative laboratories. These will generally give more detailed reports and will attempt some sort of recommendation for soil improvement, in addition to fertilizer, but generally still have one thing in common with the 'fertilizer' labs: Their work is based on the assumption that soil fertility relies on nothing more than achieving certain 'Goldilocks' (just right) levels of various fertilizers.

Again, garden soil testing is rare among labs in this group.

A sub group among this second category of laboratories could be called the 'soil balance' labs. These give the most detailed reports, with recommendations based on some sort of soil balance system. Their work is so different from that of the fertilizer labs that many conventional thinkers would put them right out on the "lunatic fringe". However, this would be selling them a bit short.

Reports from the soil balance labs are often hard to read and they use terms like Albrecht and Reams, etc. So you may have to go back to school to use one.

The exception to this rule (why we favor them so much here) is SWEP Laboratories in Australia. They work hard to make their reports easy to read and provide a lot of support and information to their customers. But most importantly, their work is based on research carried out in recent years and which focuses on soil improvement - rather than just nutrients.

Importantly though, they have recently adapted their existing farm services to suit garden soil testing. If you would like to find out more about them before we go any further, why not read through the SWEP garden soil testing page.

Reading Soil Test Reports

One of the things that makes the SWEP report so good is that the results are set out in their respective groups according to the three major components needed for soil improvement - Structure (cations), Nutrients and Biology - with separate recommendations for each.

To see the sort of results and recommendations you get in each section of the report, see our page on reading soil test reports.

However, making the best use of your test results relies on more than just understanding what is on each page of a report. So we also have some other reading material for you as well:

Soil balance and the Mikhail system
Effective soil improvement must begin by optimizing the physical environment in the soil. This is why the Mikhail System has been found so successful in recent years.

Soil problems
Salinity, acidity, water logging and drainage are important problems, but no amount of fertilizer will fix them. In cases like this, garden soil testing becomes especially important.

5 steps to soil improvement
Most soil balance systems work well, but not all the time. This inconsistency in their results is really what underlies their lack of acceptance by mainstream agriculture. The Mikhail System is different - follow these 5 steps and get a good result on any soil, anywhere in the World.

Soil biology
Until recently, not much was really known about soil biology (even though there have always been people making claims to the contrary. But even less was understood about how to effectively integrate biology into a reliable soil improvement process. Here is what the new research is telling us.

Which is better - Organic or Chemical fertilizer?
The answer is not as straightforward as you might think. Each has its place and using fertilizer properly is the most important thing.