An easy way to help determine what type of soil you have is to simply feel it to determine texture and thus what the primary makeup of the soil is. Grab a baseball-size portion of the soil in your hands and wet the soil with water, working the moist soil with your hands. The stickier it is, the more clay there is. The soapier the soil feels, the higher the silt content. Grittiness is indicative of sand. The soil texture triangle above shows the 12 major soil texture classes and what percent of each type soil makes them up.
