On Sun, 03 Apr 2011 14:18:49 +0100, Richard wrote:

Hi. What soil situation do I have and what does it mean in terms of
gardening? Thanks.

I live on a sandstone hill/prominence. Best top soil not too thick,
about 7 or 8 inches. I think it drains well. Not too deep (23cm)before
start getting to rocky sandy soil.

Pictures:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/richard...RY/garden.html


New house, new garden perchance? A lot will depend on what you are
thinking of growing. The photos look like a simple sandy soil but it's
worth testing yourself to be sure. Get some damp soil, about the
volume of a golf ball, and roll it in your hand. If it feels gritty
and you cannot roll it into a ball, it's really sandy. If you can get
it to stick together a bit, it'll be a bit more loamy. The ultimate is
that you can roll it into a sticky ball of clay soil but I don't think
you'll manage to do that.

If the soil is a bit loamy, then it will hold some water and
nutrients. If it's sandy then it'll drain easily and won't hold
nutrients well - they'll wash out easily.

If the soil passes the "sandy" test, then you need to dig in something
that will give it a bit more structure such as spent mushroom compost,
garden compost if you have any, rotted manure and the like. If it's
slightly loamy, then you still need to add something to it but not
necessarily as much.

The second thing to look for is the pH of the soil. If you want to
grow things like rhododendrons or azaleas, these need acid soil. Find
out the needs of what you want to grow. So it's worth forking out for
a soil testing kit to get the pH. This will inform what you add to
sandy soil, for example. Mushroom compost is alkaline so you might
want to use a lot of that to make an acid soil more neutral. Peat is
acid. Manure tends towards acidity (at least around here), coconut
fibre is neutral.

Eight inches or so of decent topsoil isn't bad really for growing
flowers though it's a bit shallow for root vegetables, shrubs and
trees. Read up on "double digging" if you want a veg patch as you'll
need to go down a bit deeper. For shrubs and trees, you can get away
with digging a decent enough hole about twice the diameter of the root
ball and half as much again deep and after planting backfill with a
planting mix of about 75% your own soil and 25% compost and related
stuff.

Finally if your soil does turn out to be sandy, you will need a
feeding regime. For bedding plants, for example, that regime will need
to allow for twice weekly feeding when plants are in flower. And
you'll need to water more often.

Hope this helps.

Jake