L1.1 – Kit Unboxing & Component Introduction

Why do a Soil pH Test on your garden soil?

Your soil’s pH can have a profound effect on what nutrients are available to your plants. This is especially important for those of you using synthetic fertilizers to feed your crops. If you are already using compost and working with your soil’s biology you might find the pH of your soil is adjusting to perfection without you.

Soil pH testing is done to see how acidic or alkaline your soil is. pH means potential Hydrogen. It measures the number of H+ ions in the soil water.

It’s a logarithmic scale that goes from 0 to 14. A pH of 7 is considered neutral and most plants prefer something around 7 or just a little lower or acidic. Anything under 7 is acidic with 0 being most acidic, 7 being neutral and 14 being most alkaline. Because it’s a logarithmic scale each jump is a ten-fold increase so a soil with a pH of 5 is 10 times more acidic than one with a pH of 6 and 100 times more acidic than one with a pH of 7.