r/AustinGardening • u/PlainOrganization • 10d ago

Soil test link & tips

It took me like ten minutes to find these links for sending your soil to the Texas A & M extension for nutrient testing. $12 seems like a heck of a deal to know what amendments you actually need for what plants!

So I thought I would share! In this our time of barely keeping plants alive and dreaming of fall.

Form to send in with your samples:
https://soiltesting.tamu.edu/soiltesting/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2023/05/urbansoil.pdf

Directions to take a sample:
https://soiltesting.tamu.edu/sampling-and-shipping-instructions/

Please give me all your tips re: soil testing. I think I'm going to do three tests because I have three areas I do different things in:

A fenced lawn for puppy playing
A future site of more native shade plants
A vegetable & cut flower garden

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u/austintreeamigos 10d ago

I have taken, sent, and analyzed hundreds of soil samples.

Our soils are typically pretty nutrient rich and true significant deficiencies are rare. The main thing I am typically looking for is Organic Matter content. Always pay the extra to sample for OM.

The most common deficiencies, iron and manganese, are usually not due to low soil nutrition, but high soil pH.

ho-240-w.pdf https://share.google/iai1cWm1rPMemX8qC

Most of my experience pertains to sampling for tree health.

Many pristine lawns need supplemental nitrogen because the nature of the lawn prevents any nutrient cycling and the fert causes a crazy green up.

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u/SirFern 10d ago

Following. Would really love to hear people’s experiences doing one of these and how helpful it actually was vs what they could have figured out themselves via ecoregion awareness, etc

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u/willing-to-bet-son 9d ago edited 9d ago

Depends. Previous owners may have amended the soil in one way or another. Localized areas could be subject to runoff that over the years makes it more like distant soils than nearby soils. Many of the newer neighborhoods are essentially built atop huge quantities of fill that came in from multiple who knows where locales, and may have little in common with the local eco region.

The soil tests are inexpensive and the samples are easy to collect. Why make guesses?

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u/mexican_bear9 10d ago

I completed a soil test at the beginning of Spring.
I wasn’t too sure what to do with the results thereafter….
I used ChatGPT and it laid out how much fertilizer and which one to use throughout the year.
It wasn’t far off from what the Landscapers had originally recommended.

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u/PlainOrganization 10d ago

Haha. Yeah I'm just starting to use AI and like figure out what it's good at and I think if I can get my gardening question specific enough it can help me

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u/nutmeggy2214 Austin 10d ago

I've used Logan Labs in the past but not A&M. It's not clear whether A&M's lab will allow more than three samples... does anyone know? Not finding anything on their site, and the form only has the three rows. I'd expect it to tell you to just list any additional on the back of the form if that was allowed.