The first step involves soil testing. Possibly the easiest way to do this, would be to dig a small hole in each area of your garden in which you intend to plant, take a small sample of soil from each and mix the samples together in a bucket. This creates an “average” soil sample from your garden.

The soil can then be tested at a garden centre, or by using a DIY soil-testing kit. The results can uncover a number of different problems – each requiring different remedies – including high or low levels of potassium, pH, phosphorous, nitrogen and drainage. These problems are usually fairly easy to remedy by adding ingredients such lime, sulfur or bonemeal to the soil.

Once any problems with your soil have been dealt with, it’s time to get rid of any weeds. to provide a clean planting site. You can then add any fill or topsoil before you plant the sod. You can incorporate fertilizer now, or wait until the new turf has started rooting to the soil. The choice of what fertilizer to use should be based on the results of your soil test.St Augustine Sod

Before planting, it’s important to make sure that the soil is smooth, graded and well-plowed. Also be sure to rid the planting area of sticks, leaves and stones, as they can all hinder the sod from becoming properly rooted. Finally, just prior to laying the sod, lightly water the soil. This prevents the sod from drying out while being installed.

With correct irrigation, your lawn should thrive – but it’s something that all starts with proper soil preparation for St Augustine sod.

Water content in soil helps professionals learn when and how to plant crops. It is also important to learn a soil’s water content when building an irrigation system. A soil psychrometer is especially useful in this situation, as the instrument is very accurate in dry conditions.

Soil psychrometers work by comparing two pieces of data. The instrument has two “bulbs,” one that is 100% wet and one that is 100% dry. By comparing the two readings, you can get a value between 0.5 and 30, which can be converted into water content. The process is long, because you must wait for vapor equilibrium, and the readings are not as accurate when the soil is very wet, but the instrument is highly sensitive in dry conditions, making it a vital tool for farmers in arid regions.

Many alternatives are available for people who do not wish to use a soil psychrometer. One of the simplest ways to measure water content is to weigh exactly one pound of soil and then dry it out completely and weight it again. The difference Soil Psychrometerbetween the two weights is water content. This method is not very accurate, but a good way for home gardeners to learn more about their soil conditions. A number of pieces of scientific equipment are available as well.

Before buying a water content reading device, know what is important to you. What are your soils’ other properties? How accurate does the reading need to be? How humid is your climate? How much are you willing to spend? How much skill and experience in water content measuring do you have? After answering these basic questions, ask a professional at your local garden center to help you choose an instrument. There are many varieties of water content instruments, and only by answering the above questions you can decide if a soil psychrometer is right for you.

The simplest way of evaluating top soil is to look at and feel the product. Good top soil will crumble through your fingers without too much clumping. It will also be a rich dark brown color. Get your face down there-good top soil will smell sweet and earthy.

Top soil cost should be proportionate to quality. If you are buying a large amount of dirt, you may want to get it professionally tested to make sure you aren’t getting ripped off. Sometimes, top soil companies are not necessarily scamming consumers, but their product is from an areTop soil a that does not coincide with the soil in your garden. Although it is not a bad product, it may not be right for you. A test will tell give you an idea of quality and usability. Top soil tests will look at four things: pH, salt content, organic matter and texture.

You want the pH level to be between 5 and 8, with better quality being at a neutral 7 on the pH scale. Of course, research according to what you will be planting-some plant life is more sensitive to pH than others. Top soil cost should reflect pH first and foremost. Salt is also an important factor-too much salt will make it difficult for your plants to get the water they need. If you can see salt crystals in the soil, there is probably too much to be acceptable. Quality top soil should also have at least a 1% organic matter make-up. This especially should be consistent with your local soil; lower values are ok in some situations. The last test is for texture, i.e., the sand, silt, and clay content in the soil. An ideal product is less than 30% clay and less than 70% sand.

A garden professional can further help you evaluate the top soil brands. When you find a company the sell a quality product, be sure to return to this brand for your top soil needs, as it will have to be replaced at least every few years, more if you live where there is a lot of erosion. Top soil cost should be a primary concern for every new gardener.

There are a number of objectives that are possibilities for lesson plans involving soil. One possible topic is the layers of soil on earth. To demonstrate this, students can create models of the earth using different colors of clay. Have the children form a ball with red clay using about 1/4 of a block of clay. This represents the core. Next, have them cover their red ball with an entire block of brown clay. This represents the second layer of soil in the earth. Finally, use about 1/4 of a block of green clay to cover the brown. This represents the crust, which is what we see. Cut each child’s ball in half so they can see the different layers. Talk about the class about the characteristics of each layer. Have them guess, for instance, why you used red clay to create the core and green for the crust.

Another soil-related activity you can do with your students analyzes the biological life in soil. Discuss why soil is important in the animal and plant world. Soil Lesson PlansWhat animals live in soil? What animals eat soil? Then, if possible take a field trip to the playground and dig up a patch of soil. What creepy-crawlers can your class find? Discuss with the children how soil is important not only to worms and spiders, but also to humans because much of the food we eat is grown. Also discuss how soil becomes polluted and what we should do to keep our earth clean.

There are countless other activities also available for soil-related topics. Children will be amazed about how much there is to learn about something they see every day, like dirt. This can also lead to lessons about other pollution topics such as air and water. With a little innovation, teachers can prepare soil lesson plans to help our children learn to take care of the earth.

The easiest way to clean contaminated soil is to wash it out. Pure water works wonders when trying to force pollutants out of your ground. Sometimes, chemicals are used to do the job. This process is time consuming and not always the best method, but it is a good start for small projects.

Polarization is another method of on-site remediation of soil. In this process, professionals use electromagnetic fields to attract the pollutants into one area of the soil. This chunk of soil can then be removed and taken to an off-site lab for proper cleaning. Polarization soil remediation is not a viable option of most homeowners, because it requires expensive equipment such as an anode and cathode to pull molecules in different directions.

A third option is bacteria soil remediation. In some cases, a pollutant might be removed by introducing into the soil bacteria that will eat the chemical. This is a natural way of ridding your soil of chemicals and other pollutants, but it is a long process, as bacteria may On-site Soil Remediationneed two or three years of continual feeding to remove the pollutant from the soil

If on-site remediation does not work, there are a variety of off-site processes as well. However, to do this, you most remove all of the contaminated soil and ship it to a lab, which is a problem if the contamination runs deep. This may hurt the environment more than it may help, because you will destroy some of the natural land formation and potentially disrupt underground riverbeds. Nevertheless, this option is 100% effective since it can be controlled in a lab setting, making it a good option for accidents with chemical pollutants that are extremely toxic. In any case, if you think your soil may be contaminated, call a professional. They can test the site and explain the options, and you can decide if on-site remediation of soil is the best option for the situation.

Collecting a soil sample
The quickest way to get an idea of the soil quality in your garden as a whole is to collect an “average” sample. This involves digging a small hole in each area of your garden that will be used for planting, taking a small amount of soil from each hole and mixing them together – hence, “averaging” the quality.

Getting it tested
The next step involves getting your soil tested. You can do this at home with a home soil test kit (readily available at garden centers) and decipher the results yourself, or you can take your soil to a garden centre to have it analyzed (A list of garden centers in Arizona is available at http://www.desert-tropicals.com/nurseries/nurseries.html).

Interpreting the results
The results of your soil test may uncover any of several problems, with each one requiring a different plan

of attack. These problems include high or low levels of potassium, nitrogen or phosphorous; high or low pH (causing acidity or alkalinity); and the issue of too much or too little drainage.

How to treat soil problems
*Acidity problems can be corrected by liming the soil or adding calcium carbonate, which has a neutralizing effect.

*Adding elemental sulfur to soil will acidify it, correcting alkalinity

*Breaking up waterlogged soil and adding organic matter to Soil Testing Arizonaentice earthworms will help improve drainage in finely-textured soil, helping resolve insufficient drainage

*Adding organic matter deep down in sandy or over-drained soil will help increase its moisture-holding capacity.

Soil testing in Arizona, and fixing any problems, can be made fairly simple if you have the right resources and knowledge – and your garden will certainly be better off for it.

Compost piles are not pretty, so find a good area that is larger enough for your needs, but out of site. Also make sure that this spot is easily accessible and a convenient location in relation to your kitchen. You can begin a compost pile on the ground, but most people choose to build a wooden frame to serve as a barrier. An old sandbox works well for this is you do not have access to wood working equipment; however, you may want something taller to house your scraps.

Begin your compost pile with nothing more than leaves, grass, and healthy soil. In less than 8 months, this can be dug out to retrieve compost. The best mix of compost will be a 50-50 combination of brown matter (healthy soil, dead leaves, etc) and green matter (freshly cut grass, weeds, etc). Your compost pile should be moist, but not wet, and you should turn the compost every day. Once you get the pile started with leaves, grass, and soil, you can start adding kitchen items, such as coffee grounds and eggshells to the pile. Bury the items into the compost and continue to turn it daily.Organic Soil Enhancement

If your pile gets larger than three cubic feet, begin a new pile. This will help the process go faster, and retrieving compost from the bottom of the pile will be easier. Your compost is ready to use in the garden when the components are no longer recognizable and it looks crumbly and brown. The pile should smell earthy, but if the odor is foul, you need to add more brown matter. You should not compost animal waste, sickly plants, or anything chemically treated. By this time next year, you can have a working compost pile to inexpensively provide your garden with organic soil enhancement.

Soil should be high in organic matter. Watermelons will grow best in a sandy soil that is light and has good drainage. The soil should also be as near to neutral as possible on the pH scale. It is very important to plant the watermelon in warm soils-use a thermometer to make sure soil temperature has reached at least 65 degrees.

However, don’t wait too long to plant your watermelons or sow watermelon seeds. The plants need a set growing period to mature, and if you wait too long the cold weather will kill your plants. Ask the garden professional working at the nursery where you bought the plants how long they will take to mature and plan accordingly. If you buy seeds, the back of the packet should tell you the same information. Make wise planting choices-watermelons are very difficult to transplant once they’ve begun to grow.

Remember that watermelons grow to be very large fruits. Plant each watermelon plant about a foot deep, or at the same depth they were at in the planter from the nursery. It is important to leave about three feet of growing room between each plant so the fruit can flourish.

Watermelon SoilWatermelons need at least an inch of water to drink every day, so irrigate according to how much rainfall occurs. Also take care of your plants at night-free-floating plastic that covers the rows will trap in the heat of the day and protect your plants when temperatures drop. This will help your baby plants survive early in the growing season.

Remove the plastic when flowers begin to appear. This will allow bees to pollinate your plants, and the more pollination that occurs the better chances you have at a successful harvest. Also, once flowers appear, begin to fertilize the plants two-three times each week.

By following these tips, you should have a patch of watermelons to enjoy during the summer months. With a little time and care, your plants will be fruitful. The perfect watermelon soil is easy to achieve and good growing practices are simple to learn, even for beginners.

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Commercial products

*Agromin Powermix™ – A professional blend for general landscaping. It breaks up heavy clay soils, improves water and oxygen content, and promotes growth and root development. It’s also pH balanced, and adds organic matter to soil.

*Nrg’s Nature’s Solution™ – A natural, composted product that stimulates roots and microbial activity. It also increases plant health and vigor.

*SoilTac™ – A soil stabilizer and dust control product. It’s a copolymer emulsion that is biodegradable, environmentally-friendly and resistant to sun, moisture and alkaline. It can also be used daily without any loss of effect.

Home-made products

Plant Growth*Fish meal – This is renowned and an excellent soil conditioner and a great bacterial food for your soil. It can be made using a base of cheap canned fish, with many “recipes” available online.

*Home-made soil conditioner – Home-made soil conditioner keeps your soil in good shape for gardening. You can make your own using compost, peat moss, manure and leaf-mould.

If you know what products positively affect growth, plant soil products that really work can put you on the path to having a fabulous garden.