Here are some soil tests you can do simply,
1) Structure. From that soil sample put enough of the rest to make a 4 inch level in a clear 1 quart jar, with a tight fitting lid. Fill that jar with water and replace the lid, tightly. Shake the jar vigorously and then let it stand for 24 hours. Your soil will settle out according to soil particle size and weight. A good loam will have about 1-3/4 inch (about 45%) of sand on the bottom. about 1 inch (about 25%) of silt next, about 1 inch (25%) of clay above that, and about 1/4 inch (about 5%) of organic matter on the top.

2) Drainage. Dig a hole 1 foot square and 1 foot deep and fill that with water. After that water drains away refill the hole with more water and time how long it takes that to drain away. Anything less than 2 hours and your soil drains� too quickly and needs more organic matter to slow that drainage down. Anything over 6 hours and the soil drains too slowly and needs lots of organic matter to speed it up.

3) Tilth. Take a handful of your slightly damp soil and squeeze it tightly. When the pressure is released the soil should hold together in that clump, but when poked with a finger that clump should fall apart.

4) Smell. What does your soil smell like? A pleasant, rich earthy odor? Putrid, offensive, repugnant odor? The more organic matter in your soil the more active the soil bacteria will be and the nicer your soil will smell.

5) Life. How many earthworms per shovel full were there? 5 or more indicates a pretty healthy soil. Fewer than 5, according to the Natural Resources Conservation Service, indicates a soil that is not healthy.

These do not replace a soil test that tells you the soils pH and Phosphorus, Potash, Calcium, or Magnesium levels but people have gotten by without those tests when they were not available. if you can find someplace that would do them, that would be good since the problems may be nutrient related.

strider42, Since you gave no further clue than an Asian country, it is hard to help much.

What might be helpful is telling whether the soil is pure sand, whether this soil has ever produced good crops, whether the area is tropical, whether the soil is highly leached of minerals by high rainfall, whether the garden site is on a former dump.

It sounds like your soil is highly deficient in minerals or highly contaminated.

g'day,

too easy really, if the plants grow and look healthy then there is nothing to little wrong with the soil, to keep a natural balance we mulch heavily with spoilt hays like lucerne hay and grass hay, the easiest and cheapest for us is sugar cane mulch in roll or bales.

we then tuck our spent vege' plants and rottable scraps from kitchen under the mulch so never need to fertilise, and our worm farm worms live in the garden, all too easy really.

we do use gypsum and on occasions dolomite, like now there has been radiata pines growing so using some dolomite to help sweeten the soil.

that's it currently raking slashed grass from other properties to save buying mulch.

see our presentation:

len

len

Here is a link that might be useful: lens straw bale garden

Root crops need very loose, very sandy soils. Compacted or rocky soils will reduce or deform root production. Other problems seem to indicate nutrient deficiencies.

Folks have gardened for eons without soil tests - no reason you can't as well. FWIW, adding copious quantities of organic matter - like compost, composted manures, leaf mold, etc. - can improve virtually any soil condition.

Sun light is a factor too. How long has your garden been a garden? What was there before you made a garden? A little history of the soil may help determine what it needs. you may want to buy a PH meter, relatively inexpensive,and a real handy tool. It will help determine which way to go when adding things to your garden.

"It seems everyone agrees never to do anything without one, but I'm wondering, how did gardeners get along all these years without them?"

Yup good point. I know small farmers that have large organic garden plots and NEVER get soil tests. Just adding good compost each is the only thing they do.

TheMasterGardener1, I know an old (87 years) farmer who says he use to test his soil to see if it needed lime with his tongue. If it was sweet it was ok, If it was bitter, needed lime. He says nowadays it taste terrible no matter what you do with it

For eons people did not have the soil tests for pH and nutrient levels and managed to grow foods and there are still people today that do not get them. However, a soil test is a tool that 1. helps youi know your soils pH, important since nutrients are more readily avaliable in a fairly narrow range, 2. helps you save money by telling you if you might need some "fertilizer", soil amendment, to put things in balance, 3. helps you get that good, healthy soil that grows strong and healthy plants better able to ward off insect pests and plant diseases so yuou spend less money on things to control them, and 4. increases your knowledge about your soil.
You need not test your soil every day, week, month, or even every year as some seem to think. A test every 3 to 5 years, once that soil is in that good, healhty condition is all that is needed to keep it there. Good commercial farms have their soils tested annually for economic reasons, if adding some fertilizer is not necessary it increases the bottom line.

Well said, kimmsr.

The first thing to understand, strider, is that soil is not the only factor in getting food from plants. As others have mentioned, there are also the issues of climate and sun fall and moisture.

Plants that are not well-adapted to a particular climate will fail to thrive. Plants not getting the amount of solar radiation they need will fail to thrive, plants not getting enough moisture or too much moisture will fail to thrive. The thing to do in any situation where one is ignorant of what is normal, is look around and see what others are doing. Are other gardeners in your region trying to raise the same types of crops that you are? If not, it's likely you've got the wrong crops. Is your garden as sunny as other gardens? Have you noted what other gardeners are using for fertilizer?

What other gardeners are using for "fertilizer" is not always a good indication of what I should be using because that person may not be using the right stuff. If my next door neighbor spreads a 36-2-18 synthetic fertilizer on his lawn 4 to 5 times a year is that an indication I should also? I doubt that very much.
Sometimes plants get too much sun and are stressed because of that. Too much sun can cause a plant to transpire too much moisture which leads to wilting, not because there is not enough soil moisture but because the roots cannot get that moisture up to the leaves fast enough to replace what is going out. Full sun is not necessarily 12 to 15 hours each day, those plants may need only 6 to 8 hours of sun.
The soil is the most important part of any farm/garden.

good one kimmsr,

well put

len

A rough guide to nutrient deficiencies is linked below.

tj

Here is a link that might be useful: Symptoms

Kimm, did you notice that the OP said they are in an asian country? So it's a fair bet that other gardeners there are not using synthesized salt fertilizers.

Try to think outside your paradigm once in a while.

I did Mr. Brown, however use of synthetic fertilizers is common in Asia.

Posted by pnbrown z6.5 MA (My Page) on
Wed, Jul 25, 12 at 7:01

Kimm, did you notice that the OP said they are in an asian country? So it's a fair bet that other gardeners there are not using synthesized salt fertilizers.

Try to think outside your paradigm once in a while.

It is fairly commonplace on these forums for persons to ignore non-NorthAmerican posters. One of the more amusing of these I noticed, years ago, was someone who admonished the poster from Malaysia to first contact his county agent. See your ''local'' [whatever] is a common mystery-meat response.

I rarely note these quirks as most posters don't bother to list their location.

for me a gardener is a gardener no matter where they hark from, often see some inverted snobbery fro the US sector, i have felt the lash, doesn't bother me as i am of the sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me, sect.

on one of the other forums now about drought, someone has tried to diminish my imput.

the most common form of feeding the soil is human waste in asia not many poor type gardeners use or can afford chemical man made fertilisers.

this is a world village, we talk over the back fence there are no barriers.

i tell what works for me, it is up to the recipient gardener to take from that what they can sue or reject it, it is not up to other posters to attempt to scensor what i or others might say.

so back to topic, this block we just bought and built on had good looking clay loamy soil both red and brown, with clay under perfect for the use of gypsum. all plants and grasses on the block were growing strong and healthy, that indicates healthy soil, the land has supported radiata pine plantations, that says there could be some acidity so using some dolomite won't hurt.

our av' rain fall will be around the 600 to 800 mm range, all plants we have planted some 30 or so are thriving, that says without a soil test our observations are close to the mark. anyone find anything wrong with that experience.

we do NOT need science in anyway, shape or form, we mimic nature.

now lets help our asian friend.

len

Agree with gardenlen, pnbrown,albert_135.
I garden in the US South. Before posting advice on the different fora, please have the courtesy of actually reading the OP's question and make sure your advice applies to the OP's situation, or else ask more questions.
Posting lengthy treatises on how to do things 'right' is bumptious and not helping the OP at all if your situation and the OP's are different. And I do not care about anybody's MG chops, here all I want to both produce and consume is relevant advice and knowledge. Nobody's keeping track of the score.

To the OP: What I would do in that situation is
(1)try to positively identify the flora that is growing naturally around your garden.
(2) since you have internet, try googling the plant characteristics until you ID the specimens.
(3) with the naturally occurring plants ID'ed, research each one to find out what type of soils they like, and what nutrient deficiencies they might indicate.

It is going to take a while since it will be like a crime scene investigation, but you should be able see some patterns emerging that could indicate common factor(s) about your soils.

Back in the day people just went by with "What grows well here" information given by the elder gardeners, so the knowledge was both open sourced and local to the area.

hope this helps a bit.

The use of synthetic fertilzers in asia hass been on the increase since the 1950's and has been the policy of many of the asian governments that the use of human manure to fertilize fields where foods are growing should be stopped. News reports for many years have indicated this.

Here is a link that might be useful: synthetic fertilzer use in asia