Some do’s and don’ts when buying topsoil

This is the time of year when many gardeners think about buying topsoil for a variety of reasons. In some cases, their own soil is very shallow with bedrock outcrops on the surface or just a few inches below the surface.

When I lived in Purling in Greene County many years ago, there was less than 6 inches of topsoil just about everywhere on my entire property. In some parts of this region, gardeners do have soil to work with, but they also have “three rocks for every dirt” as has been reported to me. Many of our soils are indeed excessively stony.

Another reason I have heard for buying topsoil is simply that “my soil just won’t grow decent vegetables or flowers or whatever.” This last excuse is not really true. Any soil that grows weeds of any sort can also grow flowers or vegetables. It just needs to be improved.

If your soil is predominantly very heavy clay, which drains very slowly and often has puddles remaining after rain, or if it is excessively well-drained with mostly sandy texture, you can make the soil significantly better by adding organic matter. An easy way to determine your soil texture is to squeeze a handful of moist soil in your fist. If you can squeeze a threeor four-inch ribbon from your moist soil, it has lots of clay. If the soil crumbles easily and you cannot make it into a firm ball, it has lots of sand. Both excesses are easily cured.

This same remedy applies for all soils. Till in a four-inch layer of organic matter, such as compost or peat moss or rotted sawdust or rotted manure, twice a year (spring and fall) and your soil will improve dramatically!

In many cases, this remedy may be preferable to buying topsoil. Of course, there are some situations where buying topsoil is the best option, such as when building raised beds or on new building sites where the soil has been removed and replaced with “fill.” There is no legal definition of what may be sold as topsoil. You could sweep the dirt up from a parking lot in Catskill or Kingston and sell the sweepings as “topsoil.”

So, how can a gardening consumer tell if the soil they buy is any good? Some of the plastic bagged “topsoil” that I have looked at and tested is downright awful! If you look carefully at the labels on these bags, they often tell you to mix it with existing soil, since it is almost toxic to plants if used exclusively. If it is sold as “potting” soil, it should be OK for containers. If you are shopping for a truckload, ideally you would take a sample of what you plan to buy to

your local office of Cornell Cooperative Extension and have it tested for pH at a minimum. This costs only a few bucks usually and often times the master gardener who tests the soil can tell you a whole lot more than just the pH.

If you plan to buy a lot of the soil, you might want a complete soil analysis. For less than $20, this will give a good overview of the nutrient status of the soil.

It also helps to ask lots of questions about the soil you plan to buy. For example, where did it come from? Has it been screened? Was it dredged from a pond or along a creek (red flag)? Was it taken from a new construction site (maybe good). Was it mixed with manure or other organic amendments (possibly better)? Did it come from a farm field? If so, what was growing there last

year (maybe herbicide residue)? The more you ask, the better your decision whether to buy or not to buy will be.

If you have time, a week or so, moisten the soil, put it in a warm place and see what grows out of it. If you get a big crop of nasty weeds like horsetail, garlic mustard, quack grass, knotweed, etc., you may not want to buy that soil.

As for cost, expect to pay more for small loads, i.e. a pickup truck versus a dump truck. Prices may range from $25 to $35 per cubic yard, or more (3 feet long by 3 feet wide by 3 feet deep). Remember that, in general, you get what you pay for, but it helps to know what you want.