Ted Shoemaker wrote:
What exactly is good soil?

Before you can answer that question, you need to define what it's
suposed to be good for!

Good soil for building on? Good soil for acid-loving plants? Good soil
for a lawn? Good soil for containers? Good soil for a bog? What you
intend to use the soil for dictates what qualities are desired.

Now if you're just trying to make a generally loamy soil out of
something with a lot of clay, the folks that say don't add sand are
right. Adding sand to clay may help the soil drain better, but think
about what happens when you let clay out to dry. It becomes hard. And
once it becomes hard, then it's just not going to soak-up much water.
But if that's what you want....

Compost tends to eventually become neutral ph in nature. If you add it
to a soil with high ph, yes, it will eventually lower the ph, but if you
add it to soil with low ph, it'll eventually raise the ph. Of course
we're talking long-term changes. But again, if that's what you want...

Adding fresh (not composted) manure, bark, clippings, dry leaves, etc.
essentially turns the area into a compost bin. Non-decomposed organic
material will tend to pull nitrogen to aid in the decomposition.
Eventually you'll end up in the same place you would have if you had
waited for everything to compost first. Each fall I do this to my
vegetable garden by piling shredded leaves on it, and tilling them in.

Adding more potent stuff to soil, such as fertilizer, lime, sulfur, bone
meal, blood meal, etc. may be something you would want to do to adjust
for deficiencies in the soil. Generally they won't change the texture or
drainage, so in a week or two, a handful of the soil is going to look
and feel about the same as it did before you added these things. Whether
they're needed or not is something that can't be generalized, and can
only be determined by soil testing. And again, part of that answer is
going to depend on what it is you want the soil to be good for.

So "good soil" can't be defined until you define what you want it to be
good for.

--
Warren H.

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