The Hand Grab Test: My Favorite Way to Understand the Structure of Your Garden Soil

Before I ever do an at-home soil test kit or send off a soil sample to a lab, I do something much simpler: I reach down, grab a handful of soil, and make a fist.

It sounds almost too simple to matter. But this one move tells me so much.

Healthy soil just feels different than nutrient-depleted dirt. It’s got a softness to it. A give. It holds its shape, but not too tightly. When you scoop it up, it clings together gently, but crumbles easily between your fingers.

That’s structure. And structure is one of the most important (but overlooked) signs of soil health.

It’s not the only thing that matters—there’s also nutrient levels, pH, organic matter, and microbial activity—but it’s a big part of how roots grow, nutrients flow, and plants thrive. Knowing how much structure your soil provides helps you make informed decisions about necessary amendments to improve your soil and make your garden more productive than ever.

Most People Don’t Know This About Soil

Here’s something most gardeners don’t realize: Great soil is only about 50% dirt. The other half? Air and water.

Let that sink in.

If your garden beds are packed full of nothing but heavy clay or loose, dry sand, your plants are working way too hard.

That’s because most of what we grow in a kitchen garden—herbs, salad greens, fruiting plants, root crops—have delicate, tender roots. They need air pockets to breathe, pathways to stretch, and a place to access water and nutrients.

Without enough space in your soil, those roots can’t go anywhere.

If you already have soil in your garden, the first step to building better soil is knowing what your soil is trying to tell you. And that’s where the Hand Grab Test comes in.

How to Test Soil from Your Garden

Here’s how to do the Hand Grab Test:

1. Dig down a few inches and grab a handful of your garden soil.
2. Squeeze it into a fist and hold it there for 3 to 5 seconds.
3. Slowly open your hand and release your fingers. Now, observe what happens.

How to Read the Results

• IDEAL SOIL: The soil holds together in a loose ball, but crumbles apart easily as it drops from your hand. Your soil is a balanced loam consisting of mostly silt or organic matter (that’s great news for you!).
• TOO COMPACT (TOO MUCH CLAY): The ball holds together in a tight, sticky clump and barely crumbles, even when dropped.
• TOO LOOSE (TOO MUCH SAND): The soil won’t hold shape at all. It crumbles apart easily and feels gritty when you rub it between your fingers.

What This Tells Us About Your Garden

This test is simple, but it’s powerful. Because in just 10 seconds, you get a glimpse into how your soil is functioning—not just what it’s made of.

You see how much structure it has. How much air and water it can hold. And how friendly (or unfriendly) it’s going to be to your plants’ roots.

Another Option: The Mason Jar Test

Another straightforward way to assess your soil’s composition is the Mason Jar Test. Follow these steps:

1. Collect a soil sample from your garden and remove any debris. Fill a clear jar about 1/3 full with the soil.
2. Add water until the jar is nearly full, then a teaspoon of dish soap to help separate the particles.
3. Shake the jar thoroughly and let it sit undisturbed for 24 to 48 hours while the particles settle.

Observe the components in the jar. Soil will settle into distinct layers: sand at the bottom, silt in the middle, and clay on top. Measuring each layer’s thickness will give you a visual representation of your soil’s texture.

Your landscape’s soil is rarely 100% of any one element, but these simple tests help you understand your soil’s texture (and thus, its aeration and drainage properties) and what amendments you can add to improve it.

Signs of Healthy Soil

You can also use several of your senses to help you determine things about your soil. Here are the signs of healthy soil:

• WORMS: The presence of earthworms is a sign of healthy, living soil.
• SMELL: Healthy soil has a fresh, earthy scent. Sour or chemical-like smells may indicate poor drainage or contamination.
• COLOR: Dark brown or black soil is usually rich in organic matter, while pale soil often lacks nutrients.
• DRAINAGE: Instead of letting water run right through, the ideal soil will hold water just long enough for the plants to take it up. Soil that drains too quickly may be sandy, while waterlogged soil may contain too much clay.

You have my permission to step outside and give your garden soil a good whiff to check!

How to Fix Your Soil (No Matter the Result)

Whether your soil is too hard or too loose, the answer is the same: Add compost. Compost is full of organic matter, tiny air pockets, moisture, and microbial life. It improves drainage in heavy, clay soil. It adds water retention to dry, sandy soil.

And most importantly, it helps restore the balance between air, water, and mineral particles, so roots can grow and breathe.

You can buy compost from a local soil yard, a plant nursery, a municipal composting program, maybe even a big box or hardware store, although I would be careful about buying compost from a national franchise. Make sure it's organically made. Landscape supply centers often carry leaf compost, organic compost, or mushroom compost (my favorite) in bulk. And, of course, you can also make compost. 

Whether you're purchasing compost or using your own, please keep in mind that it needs to be completely finished before you add it to your garden, which means all the large material has been broken down by the composting process. This is especially important if you’re buying it in bulk or from a local source like a farm. If you feel heat from the compost or you see it smoking, you know that the compost is still working its way through the decomposition process and it’s not ready to use yet.

How to Create Porous, Root-Friendly Soil

If you’ve read my book Kitchen Garden Revival you already know my go-to recipe for great garden soil, The 103 Soil Blend:

• 1/3 topsoil
• 1/3 coarse sand
• 1/3 compost
• a little earthworm casting magic

It’s light and airy but structured. Moist but well-draining. It creates the kind of soil that feels good—and grows even better.

And inside my new course, Gardenary Soil School, I walk you through how to adjust this blend and troubleshoot every kind of soil issue—whether you’ve got clay that won’t budge or sand that won’t hold a drop of water.

The Soil Solution You’ve Been Looking For

If your hand grab test didn’t go as planned—don’t worry. That’s what Gardenary Soil School is here for. Inside, I’ll walk you step by step through how to test, mix, and repair your soil using natural methods that work with nature, not against it.

Because once your soil is working, everything else gets easier.

So grab a handful of soil today. Feel it. Test it. Listen to what it’s telling you. Then let’s start growing the kind of garden that feels just as good under your hands as it looks above the ground.