Throughout July, any family that signs up to become a Bay Star Home will be entered to win one of 75 free soil tests.

The environmentally friendly program is being coordinated by the Hampton Roads Planning District Commission. Gloucester County is a member of HRPDC.

“It’s slowly drifting into Gloucester,” said Ron Owens, Gloucester’s environmental compliance officer. “We are just trying to get people on board.”

Katie Cullipher, senior environmental education planner for HRPDC, said that the commission took over an established program from the City of Norfolk in the spring of 2015. Currently there are more than 1,900 participants in the program, of which she said only five homes have signed up in Gloucester.

The free soil tests are important, Cullipher said because such a test is the only way to know if your lawn really needs chemical fertilizers. When you apply unneeded fertilizer to your yard, you contribute to local water pollution, she said. A...