The Soil Pit: Texture, Structure and What It Will Grow

A soil test, already published here, tells you the chemistry of a scoop of earth. It cannot tell you that there is a compacted pan at 25 centimetres stopping every root, or that the water table rises into the rooting zone each winter — and those decide far more than pH does. The answer is to dig a hole and look at the side of it. A soil profile shows the layers, their colours, where the roots stop and why, and how the structure crumbles in your hand. Every one of those is read by eye and finger, with no equipment beyond a spade. It is the cheapest diagnostic in land management and the most consistently skipped. An hour with a spade routinely explains a problem that three seasons of fertiliser did not.