# Testing soil ph for home garden



## dyckster

My love of aquatic gardening has finally spilled over into the terrestial world and I purchased a couple blueberry plants this week. I'd like to move them to some more comfortable pots this weekend but they require an acidic soil (substrate  ). I'm wondering if anyone out there has any experience using their aquarium test kits for use in the garden before. This is what I plan to do and I'd like some input into what you think of it:

- put a small amount of soil into a container with some ph neutral water and stir it up
- wait for a few minutes or so then pipette some of the liquid into a test tube
- follow test instructions as usual

Any thoughts? The only articles I've seen on the intertubes on testing soil ph use an electronic probe and I wonder if that's needed if I already have the test equipment for the aquarium.


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## asukawashere

I'm pretty sure that will work - at the very least, it will give you an indication as to whether the soil is acid or alkaline. Naturally, if you start with a true neutral pH and add only dirt, alkaline dirt won't turn water acidic and vice-versa. Even if you can't pin down the number, it's a good start.

That said, if you have well water, the pH of your tap may be a good indicator as to whether or not your soil is acidic. Many underground wells partially refill from rainwater (a neutral pH) that filters down through the soil until it reaches the source, picking up minerals/crud from said dirt as it goes.. It's not an absolute rule, but it might help indicate where you might be.

Also, make sure you run the tests for multiple soil samples taken from multiple depths. The former averages out any freaky one-spot anomalies, the latter gives you a better understanding of the soil as a whole... different strata have different characteristics, and only small weeds/grasses use the very top layer of soil... blueberry bushes can put down some big roots.


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## davemonkey

That would probably work well enough, though not completely accurate. If you're really concerned about the soil not being acid enough for the blueberries, just use a good potting mix or some topsoil with peat mixed in. Also, sandy soils tend to have a lower pH than clay soils, but that can vary from one area to another.


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## asukawashere

That's true - peat compost would be an excellent additive for acidity. That said, the most acidic soils are neither sand nor clay, but those that have a high concentration of organic matter in them (decaying plants, etc.). Humus, if you want to use the technical terminology. Composted stuff in general are acidic and full of carbon, which is why it's so good for most plant life.

Try this: mix peat into your soil as much as you find necessary, based on your testing. Then cover the base of your bushes with a healthy layer of pine mulch (3-6" depending on how big they are). The mulch will gradually decay and become part of the soil over the course of a year or two, becoming an acidic soil additive, at which point you can add another layer of it. That should be sufficient for your blueberries.


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## WhiteDevil

I got a soil Ph test meter here, Biologic makes it, these units that I have can only be found in hunting goods stores, mainly by the food plot seed and such.

Its a great unit, dial indicator works great.


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## dyckster

Thanks for the input everyone. 

I think I'll try testing a number of different areas as well as sampling several places and mixing them together to get a soil average of sorts then test that too.

I figured peat and compost would be good to increase acidity but I didn't think of adding pine mulch. I'll look into that a little further.


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