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rainbowgardener
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Joined: Sun Feb 15, 2009 6:04 pm
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Re: Soil pH

It is possible. Where I used to live, my soil always registered around 8 or 8.5, which was quite consistent with what kinds of things would and would not grow for me.

One thing you should check is the pH of your water. One person that wrote in here was having a terrible problem with soil that was way too acid. Acidity can make a good medium for fungal diseases and she had them all over everything in her garden. When she finally tested her water it was pH 4. I'm not sure how that is possible either, it is like vinegar. Anyway, when she corrected the water situation, things got better.

It will be very difficult to correct your soil situation, if you are watering it with alkaline water. You might need to get some pH test strips. I'm not sure if your soil meter will read right in water or not.

It would help to tell us where you are located and what your soil is like. Sandy soils are often alkaline, but mine was alkaline clay, very bad! What kind of weeds grow most commonly and thrive for you and do you have any big trees that you didn't plant? Queen Anne's lace (wild carrot) is one that likes alkaline soil and I had it all over the place. Other weeds that thrive with alkalinity are goosefoot, wild mustard, henbane, salad burnet (a common lawn weed), chicory, chickweed. Trees and shrubs that like alkaline soil include maple, Douglas fir, Austrian pine, bur oak, hackberry, green ash, lilac, and honeylocust. My lot had a huge old hackberry and a gigantic lilac bush.....

So if these are the kinds of plants you have, that confirms that your pH meter is at least reading in the right direction. Then we can quibble about whether it might be 8 or 8.5 instead of 9.

Let us know and then we can talk about what to do.....

If you want to grow veggies, that will have to be amended. Soil that alkaline locks up some important nutrients, so they are not available.

Mr green
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Joined: Sat Mar 14, 2015 6:08 pm
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There are cheap PH testkits for urine that you can buy in healthstores. May these work good for testing water as well I wonder?



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