Importance of Garden Soil Testing That You Must Know

Updated on August 6, 2021

Every year, more than 24 billion tonnes of soil get wasted due to erosion and uncontrolled soil management.

Surprising stat, right?

But have you thought about how much of these 24 billion tonnes is from your garden?

Well, because of not understanding the importance of testing your garden soil, you might overdo or underdo it while gardening. But as you’ve managed to land on this page, we guess you’re aware enough of it.

Let’s not waste any further time, and get into the details discussion of why soil testing is important –

What Is Soil Testing and How to Do It?

Simply put- soil testing is the process of learning your soil’s chemical, structural and materialistic properties in a methodical way. The number of properties that are to be measured is not definite, actually. But the basic testing of soil shows up these following data-

Soil pH Level.
Soil Nitrogen(N) Level.
Soil Phosphorus(P) Level.
Soil Potash(K) Level.

Right after the definition, the next big question is, what is the best time to test your garden soil? Well, the best time is to spring, when there’s one month left for the plantation. Once done, it’s good to do it again during the fall.

Importance of Garden Soil Testing

Everyone says that soil testing is super important for your garden. But why on earth you should do that? Well, we’ve picked up 4 reasons not to ignore this important task anymore. Have a look-

It Lets The Gardener Know His Garden

This may sound poetic, but it’s true and important indeed! As the soil’s tests will show you the biological, chemical and physical condition of the soil, the gardener will get to learn about their soil condition anyway.

You see, some of the properties of a garden can be watched out by human eye. Such as- soil color, soil texture, soil firmness, etc. But deep down in chemical structure, there are a lot more things to check for. A perfect run of soil test lets you do that properly.

It Can Minimize The Harvesting Effort

As a gardener, you’ve to provide a number of inputs into the soil. The list contains water, fertilizer, pesticides, and so on. But having knowledge of the soil deficiency can minimize the effort.

Wondering how? Well, here you go-

Both fertilizers are nutrients (that you input manually into the soil) are supposed to be a natural part of the soil. Once you know the amount and percentage of these ingredients, you’ll know how much extra nutrients and fertilizers you’ve to put down there.

That’s how it works for a smart gardener.

It Helps You To Avoid Soil Degradation

Remember that we’ve mentioned a stat on soil erosion and waste in the first place of this article? Well, the majority of that takes place because of soil degradation, which is a must-to-avoid for most gardeners.

Once you get hit by the bad impacts of soil degradation of your garden, it will take a toll of hundreds of bucks to recover. A better and smarter plan is to run a proper soil testing, and make a solid soil management plan, however.

It Maximizes The Yield

You might agree or not, having proper knowledge of the soil condition and parameters help you in every way to maximize the yield. It will let you put a minimum amount of money after soil fertilization, do a minimum schedule of maintenance and finally, earn a maximum harvest anyway.

And all these can be done with the start of soil testing, which is the first step of soil management. It doesn’t cost a fortune or doesn’t take a good amount of time. All you need to be is skeptical with the soil testing approach.

Garden Soil Testing Kit:

Bottom Line

Understanding the importance of testing your garden soil and executing it in the right way is just step 1 of the process. There is a number of other soil management chores in the garden. Done in the right way, it can be truly a blessing for you.