Soil Sampling 101 for Home Gardeners

Welcome to Soil Sampling 101 for Home Gardeners. This is a pilot project created for the SUNY Empire Course, Designing Online Learning Environments, Summer 2017. Designing this course was a learning experience for me, and I hope that you can learn something, too! Please be aware that hiccups are bound to be found, but I appreciate your patience and support in this development phase! Thank you and enjoy the course!

You will leave this course knowing:

Why it’s important to take a soil sample
How to take a soil sample
What the results mean

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Introduction

You will leave this course knowing:

Why it’s important to take a soil sample
How to take a soil sample
What the results mean

This course is part of Cornell Cooperative Extension of Chautauqua County’s L.E.A.F. (Learn. Empower. Achieve. Farm) Program and is funded in part by the Chautauqua Region Community Foundation.

For more technical resources on soil sampling and soil health, please visit Cornell University’s Comprehensive Assessment of Soil Health page.

Supplies

This course should take you 30 minutes to complete, not including the lab wait time and the consultation time that you may need to personalize your soil sample result interpretation. You will need 15 minutes to go through the instructional pieces and another 15 minutes to actually take a soil sample of your garden or lawn.

You will need the following supplies:

Garden or desired sampling area
Trowel, Shovel, or Soil Auger
Bucket
Plastic bag (Resealable Sandwich Bag works well)
Newspaper (If soil is wet and will need to be dried)
Marker

Why it's important to take a soil sample

Test your knowledge!

How to take a soil sample

Now it’s your turn! Go to your lawn, garden, or raised bed to take a sample. Gather your supplies, choose your sub-sample locations, and bag up your aggregate. Then – bring it to our office or another extension office in your area. We use our affiliate laboratory, Agro-One. You can send samples directly to Agro-One if you choose. Please call or email me if you would like individualized help with submitting samples. If you bring it to our office in Jamestown, the cost of the sample is $20. We will assist you in filling out the necessary submission forms and can answer any questions you might have at that time.