Soil Test Review

A lab soil test gives you pH, organic matter and nutrient levels, but rarely tells you what to do next. In one 60-minute call, soil scientist Ruth Okafor goes through your report line by line and turns it into a written amendment plan and a 12-month soil calendar. No test yet? She recommends a lab and shows you how to take the sample.

Many home garden reports tell a similar story: pH slightly off, phosphorus high after years of compost and all-purpose fertilizer, organic matter lower than expected. Ruth reads the numbers against what you grow and what you’ve been adding, and works out with you what to add, how much per 100 square feet and when, and what to stop buying. The calendar spreads the work over the year: lime or sulfur, compost and mulch, a fall cover crop and the date of your next test.

Soil changes slowly, and the plan says so. Shifting pH takes months; in the alkaline soils of much of the West, lowering it across a whole bed usually isn’t realistic, so the plan works with it instead. No routine test gives a reliable nitrogen number for a home garden, so nitrogen is set from your crops and your compost. And heavy clay isn’t fixed by adding sand.