What Makes for Good Soil?

Are you thinking of landscaping or sprucing up your garden?  Then you might wonder what kind of soil would be good for growing healthy plants, beautiful flowers, or a lush lawn.  One of the key elements to achieve this is to have good soil for your plants, flowers, or grass.  Therefore, you might wonder, ‘What Makes for Good Soil? 

Good or healthy soil should provide good nutrients to plants, have good water retention (does not drain water quickly (sand) and neither does it have poor drainage like (clay).  Thus good soil should have a combination of sand, clay and is rich in nutrients and organic matter (slit).  Loam soil is considered a good soil for planting flowers, lawns, and flower gardens as it consists of all three kinds of soil, having more slit than sand or clay.  This is because it has good drainage, active carbon, rich in nutrients, and aggregate stability.  

How can you identify healthy or good soil?   Among gardeners and planters there a variety of pointers to identify good soil, but many agree that:

  • Good soil should have plenty of decomposers like earthworms, millipedes, beetles, and ants.  These decomposers among others, aerate the soil for better circulation, feed on dead plant materials like dead leaves, dead insects, and waste breaking down the organisms to provide carbon dioxide, water, and nutrients containing nitrogen, calcium, and phosphorus, and reintroducing these back to the soil as for better and healthier plants.  Therefore, if you take a deep scope of your garden or lawn soil and notice numerous decomposers, this is a pointer of your garden or lawn having good soil.
  • Good soil should allow water to reach your plants easily (deep loose soil)  but not drown the plants by retaining too much water.  This can be shown by the kind of root system in your garden.  A simple test is when weeding, dig out a few weeds and take a note of their roots.  A robust root system will have white or tan roots that are numerous and spread out enabling them to hold the soil needed for the plant.
  • Good soil rich in organic matter for nutrients.  The soil is dark in color, slightly moist, and crumbles from the plant root when distributed.
  • Good soil enables plants to flourish and not be surpassed by weeds, insects nor disease.  If you notice your plants overwhelmed by disease, this is a clear indicator that your yard does not have good soil

Identifying the importance of good soil for your yard and what makes good soil is vital for the health of your plants, lawn, and flowers.  The same way we endeavor to focus on having a well-balanced diet for our bodies is the same endeavor we should have for the needs of our lush, beautiful, and attractive plant life.

We at Keleny Top Soil can help you identify your yard soil type and assist you to re-energize your soil with our variety of compost offers.