Organic Gardening and Soil Tests

lubadub · August 17, 2019

I have been gardening for over 30 years. For most of those years I grew using chemical fertilizers. Recently I decided to go organic. I read everything I could and worked on figuring out how to balance my soil and improve the life within my soil. I worked on making great compost and dabbled in aerated compost tea and foliar feeding. In short, I have been trying to do better, better as I am now seeing it. My question is this. Since I am presently adding materials to the soil that I depend on the soil life to break down into forms useable by my plants, how can I interpret my soil test, since my soil test will not tell me much about what is in my soil not yet broken down? How will I go about balancing my soil when a lot of what I am putting in it is not measured by the soil test I am getting?

August 17, 2019	#1
lubadub Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: PA Posts: 169	Organic Gardening and Soil Tests I have been gardening for over 30 years. For most of those years I grew using chemical fertilizers. Recently I decided to go organic. I read everything I could and worked on figuring out how to balance my soil and improve the life within my soil. I worked on making great compost and dabbled in aerated compost tea and foliar feeding. In short, I have been trying to do better, better as I am now seeing it. My question is this. Since I am presently adding materials to the soil that I depend on the soil life to break down into forms useable by my plants, how can I interpret my soil test, since my soil test will not tell me much about what is in my soil not yet broken down? How will I go about balancing my soil when a lot of what I am putting in it is not measured by the soil test I am getting? __________________ Bigger is Better!