Why Does My Garden Need A Soil Test?

I mentioned in another thread that i would start a new thread on how to improve soil. While this is most applicable to garden soil where food is grown, it will improve any plant's health.

Improving soil really means getting the soils mineral balance in the optimum ratios. Once that is done, healthy nutrient/mineral dense plants and beneficial soil life are assured to follow.

This thread is for providing information on the proven soil building methods pioneered by Albrecht, Reams, and Astera (who's website I am getting a lot of the info from). I will post a few interesting articles/quotes/etc. for your reading pleasure...

Compost and Minerals or
Why Does My Garden Need a Soil Test?

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Edited by Gabriolan, who notes:

Tree Nut quoted a large amount of text from this article at soilminerals.com. I've removed that text and replaced it with the link; please visit soilminerals.com to view that content.