Test Your Topsoil (home learning)

Lesson summary

Soil and the nutrients it contains are essential for all living things. Have you ever heard of a gardener described as having green thumbs to compliment their wonderful and productive garden? It may be more correct to say they have brown thumbs because it all comes down to what’s in the soil. In this activity you are going outside and getting dirty to find out what the soil is like in your area.

The properties of soil determine the vigour and health of plants. There exists a number of simple soil tests that allow the quality of soil to be determined. The soil quality can then be adjusted to suit the desired plants, be it leafy spinach or a feature plant within a landscaped garden.
Soil moisture and nutrients are two types of soil properties. Being able to investigate soil properties is a neat form of backyard science that anyone can do. What’s more, this is data that can be fed into your family quite literally when the information is used to improve your vegie patch. So it’s time to put on a sun hat and break out the gardening gloves as you venture outside.

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