Everything You Need to Know About Soil Testing to Do It Properly

A beautiful lawn is what everybody dreams of. It enhances the beauty of your home as well as provides mental solace. It is that piece of greenery in the middle of a hectic city life where you can relax after a hectic day. Everyone who owns a decent home or apartment always probably wanted a small beautiful lawn of their own. However, just getting the lawn is not enough. You have to nurture it, or it will wither away. However, how do you properly take care of it?

Soil is the life of a good lawn

Good soil is the basis of any healthy lawn. If you want your garden to in top shape, then you need to develop its root system, namely the soil as it is the vital part. Before you even start, you need to make sure that your soil has all the necessary components it needs. If it lacks any of the right ingredients, then it is probably not that healthy and requires your utmost attention.

Importance of soil testing

When you get your lawn’s soil tested, it saves your time and brings out the maximum result. You can know a lot about the soil from proper soil tests, such as pH balance of the soil and the amount and presence of organic elements in it. It is essential as it will tell you what exactly your soil is lacking and how you can overcome that deficit.

Soil tests can be done in many ways

There are home soil tests that you can do yourself from the comfort of your home. You can buy the soil sampler tools from your local garden dealer. It is indeed a very cheap way. 

Then there are the local universities or agricultural offices where you can take the soil and ask them to test it for you. It is apparently a much costlier option. However, this is a much better examination and will give you much-needed information.

Last but not the least, there are private labs which will do this for you. As with the previous method, you have to take a soil sample with you for it to be tested.

Now home soil tests have specific limitations for apparent reasons. They can only help you determine the pH level of your soil. I if you wish to know in details, then you need to seek help from any of the other two options.

How to take a soil sample to the lab

There is a certain way you need to collect the soil sample if you wish to test it properly. For this, you need to take more than one or two samples from both your front and your backyard. This way you will get the actual result. You can use a core soil sampler or a shovel to collect your soil sample. You must make sure you remove 3 inches of soil at least from the top before actually collecting the soil. You can also mix different soil samples into the container.