Lee County Horticulture Newsletter

It's Garden Time!

If you are interested in improving soil fertility for farming, gardening, lawns or wildlife food plots, you should get a soil test. 

Because we are maintaining social distancing, the Lee County Extension office has provided a tub in front of their office (5338 Cliff Gookin) to receive your samples.

How should a soil sample be taken? 

For homeowners to test soil for fertility needs: 

1. Use a spade, trowel or soil probe to remove soil six inches deep.
2. Obtain up to 15-20 similar sections or cores from other random places in your garden or lawn. Do not take sampes where fertilizer has been spilled or manure has been piled. Do not include debris such as leaves, sticks, or large stones in your sample. 
3. Put these samples in a bucket and mix soil thoroughly. 
4. Remove about one pint of the well-mixed soil and dry it at room temperature. 
5. Place the dried soil in a container. 
6. You will need to go to https://register.extension.msstate.edu/soil-testing-laboratory to pay and complete submission form. 
7. Print the confirmation page.
8. Bring confirmation page and soil to the Extension office.
9. Inside the black tub, you will find the soil boxes. Please complete the front of the box. If you were unable to print the confirmation page, please write your order number and the transaction ID on the soil sample box. 
10. Place soil sample box and confirmation page in the black tub.

Our agent will mail the samples to MS State University Soil Testing Lab for processing. The results will be sent by email (if you provided that information) or by mail once they are processed. 

Call John Nanney at 662-432-2460 if you need help interpreting the results. 

Even though we cannot meet with you face-to- face during this challenging time, we, at the Lee County Extension Office, will continue to educate, inform, and empower our community.

MS State University Extension will continue to be here for you through all of life’s challenges! We can help you find the answers — answers you can trust.

Our foundational goal has remained the same—to deliver research-proven information to Mississippians using tools that today’s technology offers.