Soil PH

Soil pH - how acidic or alkaline is your soil?

When growing our plants, we tend to take many factors into account. The soil that we have, the location we are planting in - is it sheltered, exposed, does it get sun or is it in the shade all day, and many more besides.

One factor that most of us don't test for or take into account is the soil pH, which is a chemical measure of how acidic or alkaline the soil is.

Yet this is a very important measure as it really can affect how well the plants in our gardens grow and if it is too far the wrong way then most plants won't like it.

The fact is that the majority of plants grow best in something that is close to and around a neutral pH, which is the pH scale is 7. The lower the number the more acidic it is, the higher the more alkaline it is.

Now if you have a very low number then you should be worried as it seems the soil is pure acid, and vice versa! Whilst some plants do respond better to more alkaline or more acid conditions, in the main you should have a neutral pH unless you know otherwise for the plants.

The good news is that measuring pH is very simple, all you simply need is to buy a pH meter gauge which is available from most garden centres and won't cost much.

All that you need to do is dig down a little in the area of soil where you will be planting. Then put some water in to wet the soil. Then stick the probe of the pH meter in, and see what the reading is. Remember that 7 is neutral.

If the pH is close to neutral, then you know that most plants should do well in your garden. If however it is either way to the left or right of 7, then you need to think about buying a different set of plants that will do well in your garden, as trying to affect the pH of the soil is difficult.

If you want plants that will grow well therefore then the best bet is to avoid the soil but to buy some pots and plant the normal garden flowers and plants there, this way the pH of your soil will not affec them.

Soil PH

Author: Fred

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Last Updated: Nov 3rd 2006

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