Getting to Know Your Soil: Colour

Every soil has it's own combinations of characteristics, that affect the nature of your soil and how it performs.  These characteristics can be broadly grouped into three, inter-connected, groupings:

• Physical
• Chemical
• Biological

Lets Get Physical!

The physical characteristics of your soil are the aspects that you can actually see and feel.  They include it's colour, texture, structure, strength, depth and stoniness.

In this post, we're going to look solely at the colour of your soil.

Aerating Your Soil with Perlite

One of the biggest problems we have with soil in Australia is one of compaction.  Agricultural soil becomes compacted through over-tilling, over-cropping and use of machinery.  Garden soil becomes compacted from the building process and then us walking on it when wet.  Soil in a natural bush environment also becomes compacted as a result of various processes, including water saturation.

If soil is compacted, then there are a reduced number of pore spaces available for water and air infiltration.  The soil will drain very slowly.  It may become anaerobic.  There will be little root penetration.

In short, a compacted soil is not great for growing plants in!