Perhaps one of the most important factors for a successful garden is the soil. Properly caring for the soil starts with testing it. Then starts the real soil work.

There are many things for a gardener to know about the soil in his/her garden. The first is that there are 3 basic types of soil: sandy soil, clay soil and loam.

An easy way to test what type of soil you have is to do the glass jar test.

What you need:

·    Shovel

·    A glass jar with the label removed (coffee jar is fine)

·    A spoon

·    Water

·    Lid

·    Someone who loves to shake a jar!

Take the shovel and dig up a shovel deep section of garden.

Now take the spoon and put a few spoonfuls of soil into your glass jar until it is half full.

Fill the jar with water until it is almost to the top.

Put the lid on tight so you won't make a mess.

Now shake the jar until all of the soil has "dissolved" into the water. It should be quite a murky-looking liquid when you are finished.

Place the jar in a safe location (where it won't get knocked over) and let it sit for a couple of hours.

When you return to the soil you should have a couple of layers of soil.

There should be a bottom layer of stone/sand, then a layer of silt/clay and on top of that an organic layer. The very top layer including the water is the clay layer. The organic layer can be different sizes but basically, the order from largest to smallest will be stones, sand, silt, and then the clay.

To find out which soil type you have look at the jar. If you have more clay or silt in it then you do sand than you have a clay/silt soil. If you have more sand particles than anything else than you have a sandy soil. If however you have equal parts of all types than you are lucky to have a loam soil, which is perfect for gardening.