Introduction
When it comes to home landscaping projects, topsoil is essential. Whether it’s to raise your garden beds, change the structure of the soil, or just for filling up holes. You can get high-quality topsoil by searching for “topsoil near me” and buying it from the nearest retailer. However, choosing the best topsoil can be a tricky endeavor. Let’s check out how you can choose the best soil for your landscaping projects:
The Choices
- Pick soil with a dark tone – Good quality topsoil has a high amount of organic materials that facilitate plant growth. The shade of the topsoil can give you a rough idea about the amount of organic material in the soil. Pick topsoil that has a dark shade. You also need to check the surface for light and dark residues.
These are indicators of lime and salt that can be toxic to your plants. While you hunt for topsoil, don’t pick extremely black soil that lacks minerals. You want soil that is dark brown, nothing close to black. You also want to avoid topsoil that has a blue-green or gray hue. The soil has this kind of tint when it has been saturated with water for long periods.
- Touch and feel the soil texture – take a tiny amount of soil in your hand and give it a quick run with your fingers. If it’s good-quality topsoil, it should crumble easily. While you run it with your fingers, you should also feel the grit if it has essential minerals in it. While you check the texture of the soil, check if it clumps into large chunks or balls. That indicates high clay content that isn’t good for aeration or drainage.
- Wet the soil – take a small amount of soil in your hand and add a few drops of water to make it slightly wet. Rub it in your hand to physically feel its properties. If it’s too sticky, it’s high in clay, too smooth and it’s high in silt, and too gritty indicates a high amount of sand. You don’t want either of those conditions. The soil should have an equal amount of those properties with none of them having a dominating effect.
- Smell the soil – Decent quality topsoil would always smell sweet. Bring the soil close to your nose and take a strong whiff. The soil shouldn’t have a smell of chemicals. It shouldn’t have an off-putting or gasoline smell. Topsoil comes from all kinds of sources. You don’t want one that’s laded with unnatural chemicals and inhibits the plant’s growth. The soil shouldn’t have a rotting smell either.
- Visit different retailers – You can buy topsoil from numerous places. If you want it in bulk, you can buy it from landscaping companies. Otherwise, you can visit the local home and gardening department stores. However, your local cooperative extension that has the sponsorship of the US Department of Agriculture is arguably the best source.
You’ll find these extensions at local universities. Their job is to create the best quality topsoil with incredibly high amounts of nutrients. You should also be very careful while selecting soil at local gardening department stores. They have a wide assortment of topsoil that is used for various purposes.
- Ask the seller for the recipe – Topsoil is usually a mixture of sand, silt, and clay. While the percentage varies among gardeners, you’ll want the majority of the soil to be relatively equal portions of sand and silt with a small amount of clay.
Ask the soil for the ratio of these elements in the topsoil. If the seller gives you the recipe, you don’t need to go through the trouble of figuring it out yourself. You also need to check the seller and his business reputation online to figure out if he is a reliable person and if his words hold some truth. If you’re confused, it’s best to buy pre-packaged topsoil that has the soil makeup labeled on the side.
- Ask if it’s screened soil – As mentioned above topsoil is sourced from various sites. If it’s natural topsoil, it can be sourced from a bunch of excavation sites. That means it can have large rocks, gravels, and all kinds of chunks that you don’t want for your garden bed. Ask the soil if it has been screened or not.
You want your soil to be crushed, pulverized, and screened thoroughly to get rid of unwanted debris and pesky weeds. While it’s almost impossible to find topsoil in the market that is completely free from weed, screened topsoil gets rid of most of it. You don’t want your thriving garden bed to be taken over by weeds in the next season.
- Get the soil’s test data – Sometimes manufacturers and retailers would have the soil’s test data. This data informs you about the nutrient content along with the pH level of the soil. Try to get topsoil from sellers who are willing to provide this data.
This data saves you a lot of time, energy, and money since you’ll have a better clue of what kind of plants would grow on that soil or how you’ll need to change and mold the soil according to your needs.
- Test the soil yourself – Let’s say you’re a very cautious person and can’t trust the manufacturer or retailer’s test data. Then you’re left with only one option. You need to test the soil yourself. You can buy a soil testing kit and use it to check for the amount of potassium, nitrogen, phosphorus, and other nutrients in the soil.
The test kit also tells you about the pH level of the soil and its salinity. Ideal topsoil should have a pH level of 4.5 to 7.0 while the salinity shouldn’t be more than 0.5 millimhos/cm.
Conclusion
As you can see, there are several ways of figuring out the quality of topsoil. You can inspect it yourself, ask the seller some key questions or test the soil composition. To start off, you can search for “topsoil near me” and visit the nearest retailers.
