For some the garden is a daily act of pleasure, manicuring of lawns and edges and the never-ending jobs of planting, pruning and weeding. For others, it is a chore that has to be endured with grass cutting being the most basic of maintenance.

Whatever your attitude to your garden, your soil is your major resource and its condition governs what you should plant and indeed how that may grow.

Unlike the 100ac field, gardens are generally relatively small patches of ground that can vary from the few square meters in a housing development to an acre-plus in an enthusiastic rural home. This means, in theory, it should be easier to keep your soil in good condition for whatever you are using it for. But what does keeping – or having – your soil in good condition mean?

Soil is a living thing, or at least it should be. And generally the more alive it is, the kinder it will be to you but that will only be a payback because you were kind to it beforehand.

Soil texture

Your soil is primarily made up of some combination of sand, silt and clay – that’s the “dirt” part. This make-up comprising sand, silt and clay is called “texture”, which is what your particular soil is made up of. You can influence it slightly by importing sand to make heavier soil lighter or easier to work with. Bringing in some heavy clay will make a light soil more durable to hold more moisture in dry times. But, in the main, what you have is what you have.

With regard to texture, soils with more sand tend to be freer draining and easier to work and dig, while heavy-texture soil has more clay and an opposite set of characteristics. There are many technical names for soils depending on their textures and these are described according to the well-established texture triangle. It is not essential to know this information but it can help you understand the properties of your soil.

Andy Doyle discusses what's in soil at the Farmers Journal Stand at the Tullamore Show 2019. \ Philip Doyle

But soil is more than just the sand, silt and clay (the mineral soil) it contains. Soil is a living entity which contains billions or trillions of small living creatures and organisms if it is healthy. And it can only be really healthy if it is fed with organic materials because these organisms cannot utilise inorganic fertilisers.

A three-legged stool

For soil to be sustainable (in a garden or field context) it must be healthy. Indeed, soil is like a three-legged stool – if any one leg of the stool is not functioning properly the system will not function so well and your garden will not look so good. The basis of the three legs are its chemical, physical and biological wellbeing.

Chemical properties: This refers to the natural or adjusted fertility of your garden, or any patch of your garden, because sometimes you may want different parts of the garden to support different fertility to carry different species of plants. Plants are generally fertility sensitive so if you know the fertility of your soil your garden centre can generally recommend plant species most suited to particular fertility levels.

The pH or lime status (a measure of the acidity or alkalinity of a soil) is perhaps the most important thing for permanent plants but the other fertility measures of nitrogen, phosphorous and potash are much more important when producing annual crops like vegetables. The basic fertility of a soil can be measured using a soil test which can be done through a range of laboratories or through Teagasc.

Physical properties: This is more what your soil feels like when you dig it up. Does it dig up nice and loose and crumbly or does it mainly break up into lumps – a combination of small and big? Your natural soil structure is always being degraded, mainly by rain, and the only way it can be repaired is with the help of the very many organisms that live in the ground.

When we feed our soils with some combination of organic materials these are ultimately used by the organisms that live in the soil, starting with earthworms. The materials are eaten and mixed with soil to begin the process of repairing soil structure. That is one of the main reasons why we continuously mix organic material into our soils. It is important to note that in terms of organic materials, products like farmyard manure, horse dung and chicken litter bring goodness and nutrition while other things like compost mainly just bring organic goodness.

Soil biology: These are all the different organisms which live in our soils. They depend on a supply of organic matter to fuel their existence. Generally the biggest ones get the first bite, but cycle by cycle the nutrient flow provides sustenance for the billions of organisms that are contained in a single tea spoon full of healthy soil. When the biological system is humming it helps repair soil structure, suppress many harmful organisms in the soil and brings about the release and recycling of nutrients.

Knowing just a little about your soil can help you mind it better, get more from it in terms of food or flower, better place perennial plants for your enjoyment as well as sequestering carbon for today’s world. Even if it is only to have a nice lawn, care for the soil beneath, that living thing, makes it all easier and better.