If there is one piece of advice that I could give about gardening would be this :-  Feed the soil, Not the plants.  Soil is the life of the garden and if treated with a great deal of respect will give amazing results.

The soil in your garden might look solid but is actually half solid matter and half air and water. Owners of new houses will find that 75% will be builders rubble!! The solid half is made up mainly of minerals ranging from tiny clay particles to large grains of sand, produced over thousands of years from natural weathering of the bedrock. Therefore the type of the bedrock will determine much of the characteristics of the resulting soil. Soil also contains organic matter in varying degrees. This is made up of the decaying remains of plants and animals and breaks down to form Humus. It is humus (and plenty of it) makes a fertile soil. The remainder of the solid half of soil consists of the nutrients necessary for plant growth, and soil life (insects, bacteria and fungi).

Soils are classified according to the amount of clay and sand particlesthat they contain (and according to their alkalinity and acidity).

Try this test to determine which soil that you have. Take a small handful of moist but not wet soil. Squeeze it between your fingers and roll it in the palm of your hand to form a sausage shape.

If your sample sticks together, does not break up and looks shiny, then it has a high clay content.

If you have trouble forming a sausage and it keeps falling apart, then you have a sandy soil.

If it keeps its shape, yet can easily be broken up with a crumbly texture, then you have a loam soil.

Clay soils are heavy soils, wet and sticky in the winter and dry and flaky in summer. Clay particles are very tiny and stick together, therefore air and water cannot pass through. This is why clay soils have drainage problems.

Sandy soils are called warm soils as they warm up rapidly in the spring. Sand particles are bigger than clay and are surrounded by lots of air pockets, therfore they are free draining.

A loam soil is what every gardener strives for. These contain a good mix of clay and sand partcles plus a good supply of organic matter and nutrients. The soil is easily worked, warms up quickly in the spring, has good drainage but also retains nutrients.