Stephanie, I don't ever remember buying a bag of topsoil, but I think of rich soil as being dark. I really don't think that is true everywhere, I expect good soil could be any color. Hope AR. in noted for watermelons and watermelons seem to like sandy soil.

I have always amended the soil I had, and it has worked well for me. I would just move soil from one area to another and add organic matter. I buy composted manure from Ace Hardware for about $1.50 a bag or $10 to $35 a small pickup in Ft. Smith.

I expect that you could add compost and improve your soil no matter what color it is.

Larry

Stephanie, I don't know that one color of soil is any better than another, based solely on the color of the soil.

Having said that, I prefer dark brown to black loamy soil like we have in our woodland where decades of decaying and decomposing leaves and wood have given us a beautiful layer of rich topsoil. Unfortunately that is not the kind of soil we have on the higher land near the house and garden---it is red clay with some medium-brown silty sand cutting across the property in a couple of places.

Most of my soil is red clay and it is very mineral-rich and nutrient-rich and I have no complaints about its fertility. It is highly fertile. Plants grow like crazy in it once I've added enough organic matter that their roots don't suffocate in the dense clay.

I believe that the color of soil is linked to the types of proteins found in the soil. Red soil often is higher than other soil colors in iron, for example. Brown and black soils often have that color because they have a higher percentage of organic matter/compost/humus in them, but not always. Where I grew up in Texas we had blackland clay that was beautiful to look at, but which also needed to have tons of organic matter added to it in order for plants to perform to their best potential in it. Just the fact that it was black did not mean it had good tilth.

For what it is worth, I don't buy topsoil. In general, most of the topsoil you buy in bags is worthless crap that needs tons of amending before anything will grow well in it. If I am wanting to buy something to fill a raised bed, I buy organic matter (composted cow manure from a reliable company that never has sold me herbicide-contaminated compost, pine bark fines, mushroom compost, humus, soil conditioner [it usually is a combination of humus and pine bark fines] and rototill it into the native soil to create the raised bed.

I'm not sure why you're buying top soil, but I hope it isn't for containers. You don't put soil in containers, you put a soil-less mix in them.

Having said that, there is one time when I think bagged top soil can be worthwhile. If you have very sandy soil that drains very, very fast and you cannot get it to hold water, you can fix it by adding not only lots of organic matter but also by adding some cheap top soil that has a high clay content. The clay content when added to sandy soil plus organic matter can help you turn the very sandy soil into a beautiful sandy loam.

Enjoy being new to gardening. There's nothing wrong with being new to it, and you can garden your entire life and still experience new things in the garden, yard, etc. every year. That is part of what is so fascinating about gardening---there are so many variables involved and so many issues that can arise that you're always learning, always trying new things, always figuring out that there is more than one way to skin a cat (with apologies to any cat reading this and saying "yikes!").

One of my favorite all-time gardening quotes is from Thomas Jefferson, who said "Though an old man, I am but a young gardener".

Dawn