Taking a typical area in Qingtuhu district of minqin in the lower reaches of Shiyanghe River as the research site, we analyzed the characteristics of soil particle composition and nutrient changes in the returned farmland of different restoration periods in this area by the spatiotemporal substitution method. The results show that:(1)in the first year of farmland conversion(CK), the vegetation distribution is dominated by annual shallow-root herbaceous plants, but the species is relatively single, and the soil water storage is relatively high; with the cessation of fertilization activities, farmland was returned after 1～8 years, and annual and biennial herbs gradually recover, and the consumption of soil water gradually increase; at this time, the soil water storage significantly decrease, which is more obvious in the 0—20 cm soil layer; The succession of 13～20 years is a single plant community dominated by the small perennial shrub black fruit lycium barbarum; after abandonment of 30～40 years, the species of small perennial shrubs increase, the soil water consumption increases, and the soil water storage decreases;(2)the overall changes of three kinds of soil nutrients decrease with the increase of a number of years of the farmland, and ultimately present the stable trend, in the same period, the contents of nutrients in 0—20 cm soil layer are greater than those in the 20—40 cm soil layer, and the content differences between the two layers in the same year, though a decreased gradually over years of the farmland abandonment, the changes in soil organic matter and available phosphorus are more obvious; the variation of total nitrogen content in soil during the abandonment is small; the content of available phosphorus in the soil surface(0—20 cm)of CK reaches the maximum value in the first year of abandonment, and then shows a fluctuating decreasing trend with the increase of the abandonment years, and stabilizes finally; the soil organic matter content varies greatly between CK and 8 years of abandonment, and there is a sharp increase abrupt point in fourth year of abandonment, and the change is small between 13～40 years of abandonment. The changes of soil moisture and nutrients in different years of farmland abandonment in Qingtuhu district are basically the same, showing a tendency of undulating decrease with the increase of years of farmland abandonment.