If you drink from a private well, nobody tests your water but you. If you garden, the difference between a good year and a bad one is often something you can't see in the soil. Riverside is a small, independent laboratory that tests both, for ordinary homeowners, at prices that don't require a grant. Mail us a sample; we mail you a report you can actually read.

Fall is the best time to test garden soil: lime applied now has all winter to work. Your county extension office also does soil tests, often for less, and I'll tell you so; where we earn our fee is the written explanation and the turnaround.

Water. E-mail us and we'll mail you a sterile bottle, a form and a mailer; don't use your own jar for the bacteria test. Take the water from the kitchen cold tap. For most tests, run the water two or three minutes first. For the lead test, do the opposite: take the first water out of the tap in the morning, before anyone has run it, because that's the water that sat in the pipes overnight. Fill the bottle, cap it, keep it cold, and mail it the same day (Monday through Wednesday, so it doesn't sit over a weekend).

Soil. With a clean trowel, take a slice of soil six inches deep from eight or ten spots around the garden, mix them in a clean bucket, and send us about two cups in a zipper bag, dried on newspaper overnight. Don't sample right after fertilizing. One sample per garden area: the vegetable patch and the lawn are different soils.

Every report comes with a page in plain English: what each number is, what the common guideline is, and what to do next. In general terms:

• Coliform bacteria should be absent. If present, don't drink the water until the well has been disinfected and retested; we'll explain shock chlorination and you can call your county health department, which is the right authority for a drinking water problem.
• Nitrate above the federal guideline is a serious matter for infants and pregnant women. Boiling makes it worse, not better. Call the health department.
• Lead at any measurable level in a first-draw sample means: run the tap before drinking, use cold water for cooking, and consider replacing old fixtures.
• Hardness and iron are nuisances, not health problems: stains, scale, soap that won't lather. A softener or filter fixes them if they bother you.
• Soil pH between about 6.0 and 7.0 suits most vegetables; blueberries want it lower, and lime raises it slowly. Our report gives pounds of lime or sulfur per 100 square feet.

We are a testing laboratory, not a medical or public health authority. When a result touches on health, our report says exactly whom to call.

Riverside is run by me, Ken. I spent nineteen years as an analytical chemist for a water utility and opened this lab in 1996 in a converted garage, because my neighbors kept bringing me jars. Turnaround is five working days for water and seven for soil. Results come by mail, or by e-mail if you prefer. Payment by check with the sample; we don't take cards. We're closed the week of Thanksgiving and from Christmas to New Year's, and I'll be running the year-end date rollover on the lab's equipment myself on New Year's Eve, so the Year 2000 will not delay your report.

Hours for questions: Monday through Friday, 9 to 5. Phone (555) 555-0131, or e-mail any time.

Neighbors: Betty's Backyard Vegetable Patch (Betty tests every fall and her tomatoes show it), The Compost Pile (the cheapest way to fix most soil), Heirloom Tomato Trials, and the ResearchTriangle neighborhood.