Soil Test (repost from old site)

After getting my new allotment I have ran some tests on the soil. As I mentioned it my last post the allotment is a field and has not been used for much, so what can I say about the soil I have.

Soil type, ph. and Nutrients

Without telling people to suck eggs soil type, ph and nutrient levels will effect what you can grow and how it will grow. Soil types can be sandy, loamy, sediment, clay or a mix of two types or more eg. sandy clay soil.

The ph of soil can go from Acid with a ph. of 6.5 or below Neutral with a ph. of 7.0 to Alkaline with ph. of 7.5 or higher.

The main nutrients Nitrogen(N), Phosphorus(P) and Potassium(K) or sometimes called Potash, there are more but I’ll talk about them in another post on improving your soil. But Nitrogen is for the general growth of the plant making good strong green leaves (a good sign of low nitrogen is yellowing of the leaves). Phosphorus helps with the making of roots and stems which is basis of every good plant. And Potassium is important in the making of flowers and improving of crops in the veg plot. This is just a basic outline of each one as they do much more, but all 3 (N,P,K) are needed in the right amounts for plants to grow well and crops to be big and tasty.

Test Results So what have I got, well its a sandy soil on a flint rock base, and the ph. is 6.5 so slightly acid which is not bad, but growing brassicas that like alkaline soil will be harder and in general a soil ph. of 7 – 7.5 is best for most veg growing. As for the N,P,K levels Nitrogen(N) is very low, Phosphorus(P) is low and Potassium(K) is medium to high.

I will be talking about how to improve your soil in the next post.

Take Care

Fred