Sustainable Gardening Blog

 Why, in my 23 years gardening in one place have I never had the soil tested?  Let me count the reasons (excuses?  You tell me.)

• It’s mostly undisturbed soil.
• Everything seems to grow well here.
• I’ve never grown food.

Well, how’d I do?  Think they’ll take away my Master Gardener certification for admitting to never testing my soil?  Lucky for me, the DC Master Gardener program grants permanent certification (a situation they’ve finally corrected) so that ain’t gonna happen.  (But why DID they grant permanent certification, rather than require community service hours every year?  Because it’s too much work to keep records - and if that seems incredible, here’s my full rant about all that.)
 

But back to the soil.  What’s changed is that I’ll be growing food this season and have been utterly convinced by my DC Urban Gardener buddies that I MUST test the soil because horrible things like lead could be in it!  So I took the advice of one unnamed Master Gardener in the Beginner’s Guide to Growing Food and used the University of Massachusetts Soil Lab.  It tests for not only nutrients, which is all some of the crappy labs do, but also lead and other possible problems and only costs $9, so count me in!
 

And could it really be this easy?  I followed the instructions on their site: to gather soil from a bunch of different areas (they say 12 but the food-growing garden in question is so small, I used 6), then dry, mix, and put a cupful in a Ziploc bag, label the bag, and ship it off.   Three days later I had my test results via email, followed soon by the print version in the mail.
 

IT’S COME TO THIS: BRAGGING ABOUT MY SOIL
Here’s all it takes for me to get all proud of my soil: "Your soil pH is in the desired range."  And "Your soil contains very high levels of phosphorus and potassium."  That had my writing this to Ed Bruske:  "My soil is awesome!"  He sternly instructed me to forward him the actual results, which I did, and boy, was my bubble quickly burst.
 

First, after I’d raved about the complete-yet-cheap services of UMass, Ed shot that notion down with the put-down that the results are difficult to read and don’t even indicate the amount of organic matter, for crissake!  So maybe I should have paid another 6 bucks to use A&L, the lab that everybody around here recommends.  I see by their site that the "Complete Test" for $15.90 includes everything - the good, the bad, and the organic.  And astute readers probably already noted my mistaken glee at my "awesome" soil because it seems more like overfertilized soil and why the heck is that?  Given my modest, eco-friendly, organic (yada-yada) lawn care in the area tested I’m at a loss to understand, unless some soil science geek can postulate a reason.  Huh.  So, no more P or K for me, huh?  And no more UMass Soil Lab.
 

This just in:  I read in the latest Organic Gardening Magazine that it’s TYPICAL  for soils to have plenty of phosphorus and potassium but not enough nitrogen, so I’m back to bragging about it.  It’s lead-free!