Everyone should know their soil texture. Soil texture is the amount of sand, silt, and clay in a soil. Sand, silt and clay refers to the size of the soil particle. The texture affects most soil properties such as water relations, nutrition, compaction, and structure.

This is how you can classify soil texture, known as the texture triangle:

From USDA--NRCS

To get accurate measurement of sand, silt and clay particles it takes more skill than the average person has. But approximating works just fine. There are two easy ways to determine soil texture. The first is filling a jar with half soil, half water, shaking it up and letting it all settle out. The layer on the bottom is sand, the middle is silt and the top is clay. The texture triangle will help you determine the type of soil you have.

Here’s another useful method that takes less time (the jar method takes a whole day). I’ve seen people get very different results, but it’s not bad to determine a ballpark texture.

I hope you all tested your soil and came up with something close to a loam. That’s what we all want, and if you don’t have it: ADD ORGANIC MATTER.

*Ink and Penstemon recently had a couple of great posts about soil. That’s why I put this up.