Soil

"The miracle of the seed and the soil is not available by affirmation; it is only available by labor."-Jim Rohn

If you garden but are disappointed with the results, check out article "A Checklist for Beginning Gardeners" on SurvivalBlog.com. It includes this tip on how to analyze your soil,

Take a quart canning jar with a lid that will screw on tight enough that no water will escape during the test. Then, take about a pint of soil from where you plan on growing your garden. Clear out any plant matter and rocks, pummel the soil until it's as fine as you can make it, put it in the jar, make a line or similar mark to show where the top of your sample is inside the jar (we used masking tape and a permanent marker), fill it up with water to about an inch from the top, add 1 teaspoon dish detergent to help break up the soil, screw on the lid, and shake vigorously for five to ten minutes. Older kids and a spouse come in real handy during this process.

What you're trying to do is break the soil up as completely as possible. Once your soil is looking uniformly finely ground, set down the jar in a sunny window or some other well-lit place and time two minutes from the moment you set the jar down. While you wait, get a flashlight since you may need it for the next part as well as a marker and possibly some tape. We found masking tape worked well. At exactly two minutes, you'll see that some of the soil has accumulated on the bottom. We didn't have any difficulty seeing it because of the nature of our soil, but some might, so shine the flashlight on the jar to help find the top part of that accumulation. Make a mark.

That first mark is the amount of sand in your soil. We have extremely sandy topsoil; that's why ours was easy to see. At two hours, make another mark to show where the accumulation is at that point. That's your silt level. If you really want to be thorough with this test, wait until the water turns clear to get your clay level. It could happen within a day. Ours took several days. It looks like we have very fine clay in our soil.

... Once you have all these marks, calculate the percentage of each. Divide the height of that original mark into the other marks you made after the shake-up.

Here is a quick field-test for your clay-silt-sand mixture. Squeeze a handful of damp soil into a ball in your hand. If you poke the ball lightly with your finger and it breaks apart, it is probably sand. If a bit more pressure breaks it, you’re dealing with silt. If it sits there despite your poking, you have mostly clay.

Bottom Line

The reason these tests are so important is because they let you know how much water your soil will hold, if any. Water flows through sand but is absorbed and held by clay. I checked several web sites but could not find a recommendation for the "best" sand/clay ratio. You want a mix of both to achieve a "crumbly" soil but the ratio will depend on the plant. Plants with large root systems will need more sand since hard clay is difficult to grow through.