When choosing the right vegetable plants, the type of soil you have in your garden is crucial. The soil texture also influences how often you need to water and fertilize in summer. To determine the soil texture of your garden, there are two key parameters: the particle size and the humus content.
With the finger test, you can easily determine your soil type without any tools. On the one hand, you can determine the particle size and therefore the composition of your soil. On the other hand, you can use the color to find out the humus content of your soil.
The type of soil is defined by the particle size, the so-called grain size. The particle size is a good indicator of whether your soil is heavy or light. The larger the particles, the lighter. If you have a lot of fine clay particles in your soil, it is a heavier soil. It holds water longer, a great advantage in dry summers. In addition, heavy soils are often richer in nutrients than sandy soils. You can find more information about heavy and light soils here.
Grain size | Particle size |
---|---|
Stones and gravel | > 2 mm/ 0,07 in |
Sand | 0,05 - 2 mm/ 0,002 - 0,07 in |
Silt | 0,002 - 0,05 mm/ 0,00007 - 0,002 in |
Clay | < 0,002 mm/ 0,00007 in |
Materials for the slurry sample
Materials for the slurry sample
- Large beakers or screw-top jars for the samples
- Your soil sample
- water
- Spoon or spade
To find out the particle size, fill a handful of soil from your bed into a jam jar. Fill the rest of the jar with water, close it and shake vigorously until all the clumps of soil have dissolved. Then leave it to stand for one to two days. You should now see two layers at the bottom of the jar. A coarse-grained, sandy layer at the bottom and a finer layer of clay particles on top. If the finer layer is significantly thicker than the sandy layer, the soil is rather heavy. In optimal garden soil, both layers are approximately the same thickness. If the sandy layer is thicker, the soil can be classified as light.
The color of the soil provides information about the humus content of the soil. The blacker the soil is when moist, the higher the humus content. A high humus content means that the soil is rich in nutrients, has a healthy soil life and can also absorb and retain a lot of water. Dark, humus-rich soil is particularly suitable for growing plants with high nutrient requirements. These so-called heavy feeders include, for example, various cabbage plants or tomatoes. If your soil is light brown in color, you should increase the proportion of organic matter in the soil. You can do this by mixing in mature compost, for example. You can find detailed information on soil improvement here.
If you have any questions or comments, please write to us at [email protected]. Would you like to receive helpful gardening tips all year round and plan your own beds optimally? Then register here or download the Fryd app for Android or iOS.
Fryd - Your digital bed planner
Jonas studied agricultural biology. He discovered his passion for plants and gardening through an internship at a permaculture NGO. Since then, he has been gardening on his balcony and in community gardens.
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My summary of the tomatoes this year 🥰 1st place MARY ROBINSON'S GERMAN BICOLOR Not quite suitable for outdoor cultivation with this year's weather, medium yield, but an explosion of flavor. 2nd place ANANAS TOMATE Also weakened due to the weather, low yield, but always delicious. 3rd place HEART OF GOLD Extremely healthy despite all weather conditions, high yielding, 5 kg from one plant, close in taste to 1+2 and will definitely continue to be grown, none was as good in yield as this one. 4th place SGT. PEPPERS Dry plant, always looks slightly sickly, medium yield, but absolutely delicious. 5th place ARTISAN BLUSH TIGER Rich, healthy, absolutely delicious 🤤 6th place BOLIVIAN FRUIT TOMATO Extremely rich, absolutely delicious, great for snacking and drying. 7th place GARDEN PEACH Weak, but bears well and is surprisingly spicy for a yellow tomato. This assessment is of course subjective and only my own, but I just love beefsteak tomatoes 😂 and can do more with them. The varieties mentioned all fit perfectly into my taste repertoire. I prefer a good balance between sweetness, acidity and fruitiness. I had several other varieties in cultivation, which were also quite good, but the ones mentioned here will be grown again next year under better conditions.
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Two @Cour de Bue and three @Andenhörnchen. The @pineapple tomato never makes it into the photo because it is eaten beforehand.
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First melon harvested, low seed is different, but no matter
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