Testing soil texture

Steve and Val Bradley explain the easy way to check the texture of your soil

- Steve and Val Bradley

SOIL is so much more than just ‘dirt’, and although it tends to be taken for granted unless there is a problem, it is actually complicated stuff. It is a diverse environment of bacteria, fungi and soil organisms that all need to work together if plants are to thrive.

Texture and pH

Two of the most important characteristics, from the gardener’s perspective, are soil texture and pH. Unfortunately, these often become confused and there is a widely held belief that clay soils are acidic and therefore difficult to plant.

Examining the soil’s texture was, originally, the main method of describing a soil depending on how it felt when worked in the hand. This simple field test could give a basic idea of the relative proportions of sand, silt and clay in any given sample of soil. Soil is usually defined by the size of the soil particles it contains and grouped according to three main categories: sand, silt or clay.

Sampling for texture

A precise measurement of soil particle size can be carried out in a laboratory, using a series of sieves to separate out the different particle sizes.