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Doing a pH test
As a rule of thumb, if you have soft water, you have acid soil; if you have hard water, (there is always a scum around the bath!) the local soil is alkaline.
To be sure, you need a soil test kit, (availiable from 'all good garden centres') some deionised water and a soil sample.
- Dig several ‘soil cores’ from various beds
- Discard the top 3cm (1in) of soil
- Mix together
- Dry on a radiator
- And follow the instructions - the kit contains all you need.
Kits are very cheap, so do a couple of tests just to be sure.
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So, now you've tested your soil pH - can you tell us whether it is acidic (ericaceous) or alkaline (loamy)?
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Altering soil pH
On a large scale, don’t bother. It’s expensive and the results are only temporary. If you want acres of rhododendrons and you live on chalk, move house!
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| Liming is common practice with vegetable growing to raise the pH from say 5.5 to 6.5, but it is never worth trying to make alkaline soil more acid. On a small scale, create raised beds and fill them with a different soil, or grow in pots using appropriate compost.
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