Of course not. The easiest approach is to ask your neighbors, or specifically a neighbor who is growing something that you might want to grow, and ask whether they had to do something in particular to make it happen.

Welcome to gardening. Good ol' northeast backyard dirt is a great place to start, and IMO most stuff will grow (with a little fertilizer) in it. Down the line after you have some experience you 'might' want to get it tested, but you can have a lot of fun in the mean time.

I dont have any neighbors that grown anything, I guess what I am mostly worried about is, will it harm me or my family to grow on random soil?

The food you currently eat is grown in soil with Roundup and other pesticides concentrations far exceeding your backyard soil.

the soil test is not for contaminants, it is to verify that the medium that you are growing in has sufficient nutrients for the plants to grow, thrive, and fruit. the soil test
will tell you if you need to add N, P, K, organic material,
etc. to provide the best possible growing conditions. Of course you still don't have to do it, but it is advised every few years to keep tabs on the garden soil.

No no, There is no inherent harm in growing garden vegetables on any soil type. Soil types can range from sand, to silt loam, to clay, and anything in between. The biggest differences in soil types is moisture management; how well your soil will hold onto water for your plants.

Soil types are a representation of slope %, and physical makeup of the actual soil particles. Clay soils consist of very fine, very small particles, so the soil tends to be very dense and holds onto water very well - too well. For gardening, it is hard for vegetables' roots to penetrate clay to the proper depth.

Sand soils are the opposite of clay, the particles are so big you can see each one with the naked eye, and they retain almost no water.

The best soils are what we call a loam, they have a little bit of clay, a little bit of sand, and a decent amount of silty rich black matter, you sort of get the best of all worlds in a loam. No matter if you start with clay or sand, you can always mix in amendments to change how well your soil holds onto water.

The easiest way I can explain an introduction to gardening:

Growing vegetables requires only a little bit of effort, a little bit of knowledge, and a ton of patience. There are 3 big factors that go into how well your backyard dirt will grow veggies -

1) Fertility levels - which is almost an immediate fix, you can use miracle grow* (disclaimer - a lot of people will say that gardening is better if you use organic methods, but if you just want to grow veggies, there is nothing wrong with instant release fertilizers) or any balanced garden fertilizer on your garden plot and be right about in the ballpark. The pH levels of your soil plays a role in fertilizer availability to plants, but I won't go there right now.

2) Daily sunlight - Vegetable producing plants require at least 8 hours of sunlight per day, and they will produce more fruit the more sunlight they get. If your backyard is shaded by trees, make sure you actually count the hours of sunlight your plot gets.

In my backyard next to my house, the sun doesn't clear the east tree until 11am, and it gets shaded by the west trees around 4pm. Insufficient, I have to garden far from my house.

3) Moisture - Water management is one of the more critical aspects of gardening. If soil fertility is adequate and sunlight is sufficient, moisture levels make up the difference between success and failure. Does your garden plot drain well? If you get a 3 Inch rain will your garden plot stay soggy or underwater for days? Does your plot slope at all? Does it dry out too quickly after a rain?

The key behind moisture management is keeping things even keeled, not too wet, and not too dry. Generally what you see is heavier spring rains, when you want the water to drain away, roots cannot grow into sopping wet soils.

If your plant's roots don't grow in the spring, then they will not be deep enough to reach the moisture that is present further down in the soil profile - when the rains stop in the summer.

To sum it all up, If you have a balanced fertilizer, a plot that gets enough sunlight, and a sprinkler, you shouldn't have any problem gardening.

To directly answer you, Soil tests will tell you How much Nitrogen, Potassium, and Phosphorus is present in your soil. Those are the big 3 nutrients that plants need to grow well and produce heavy yields. Soil tests will also tell you what the pH is of your soil - which gardeners like to be around 6.5. If your pH is too high (above 8) or too low (below 6), then nutrients won't be available to your plants, and they will look stunted and unhealthy even with heavy amounts of fertilizer. Most soils are in the neighborhood of 7.0.

So no, soil tests are not necessary, you can figure that your soils will need some fertilizer, a balanced 10-10-10 (that's the ratio of Nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorous present in the fertilizer, always in that order) and you can pretty much figure that your soil's pH is probably close enough.

Do you have any questions on how to prepare your plot or anything about gardening? We would all be more than willing to help.

~Chris

ok, wow lol...so I do not plan to grow directly on my backyard because its not necessarily mine, I live in a house like building which is separated into rooms, there is a backyard but i am not planning on living here for long enough to maintain a garden back there...what I was thinking of doing was digging up some soil and using it in pots inside my house, am I able to do that? I was also thinking of composting is that the same as fertilizing?

thank you so much for all the help :)

I'll start from the end and work backwards. The amendments I talked about above to improve the soil mostly come in the form of organic matter, whether it is manure or grass clippings or newspaper, if you put it in a pile and let it break down, you have compost. Compost will add a measure of earthyness to the soil, it will help the soil drain better yet hold onto moisture longer.

Compost is also full of nutrients, if you compost well enough (there is a certain way to do it) then you will have all of the nutrients that you will need to feed your plants.

Growing in pots is certainly doable, it just requires more fussing over the plants. Potted soils can dry out in a matter of hours, but they can also be over watered in the same amount of time. There is a specific forum on here for growing plants in pots, and someone more knowledgeable than I would be the one to talk about watering rates and how to monitor.

The best potting soil is a mix of regular soil and potting mix, I'm no expert on the ratio of what to add though. I just know that potting soil bought from the store itself tends to dry out quickly and isn't the most desirable growing medium.

On the other hand, backyard soil might be too heavy for your pots, they may drain too slowly, so a mix of the two would seem to be a good way to go. The biggest challenge to growing in pots is getting sufficient sunlight.

Also, growing in pots you have to beware of tap water. The chlorine in most tap water will build up in a pot and will damage the plant. I lost a winter tomato plant that way. be sure to let your water sit for several hours to let the chlorine volatilize.

I suggest that you check out the 'Container Gardening' forum on this site.

thank you so much for all of the help and great information you have provided mr Chris CL, I will deff go to the Container Gardening forum suggested by edweather

I was always intimidated about having my soil tested because I had no earthly idea how to go about it and thought it would be too costly. After minimal research online, I found a local extension branch and handed over a gallon ziplock bag of dirt. For $6 I got the sample results a few days later in the mail. Cool and quite helpful.

I'll bet Philly has the same...here is the Penn Sate extension that will sell a kit with instructions for $10.

Here is a link that might be useful: Penn State Extension