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In spite of taking the best care like providing proper sunlight, regular watering, regular feeding your plant with fertilizers and following all care tips, sometimes, your plants may not be doing well, like showing stunted growth, poor flowering and fruiting, leaf yellowing and so on. In Today’s episode, we will look into the importance of soil PH for proper plant growth and yield. What should be the ideal soil ph for most plants and how to alter the soil ph naturally to achieve this. Which plants are called acid loving plants and lastly 3 easy methods and hacks to test your garden soil PH at home. All that’s Coming up!
Many of my viewers ask a very important question – what is the correct soil ph for plants and how do I test this and how do I change it? The answer to this question is not so simple, but I shall try to make it simple and tell you what is the perfect or the ideal Soil PH for most plants and also few natural ways to soil amendment that can make your soil PH to the desired level.
Sunlight, water, nutrients—these are the basic factors for plants to thrive. But there is another crucial factor that determines whether your plants thrive or struggle to grow? It’s a soil property called ph. An ideal range of soil PH is indispensable for proper nutrient absorption by the roots.
What is PH? PH is a just a number or a value ranging from 0 to 14. 7 – that’s the middle of the scale is considered Neutral PH and anything below 7 is called Acidic or Sour in layman’s term and Anything above 7 is called Alkaline or Sweet.
So, what is the Perfect or the Ideal or the desired Soil PH for most plants? How will I measure this and How will I adjust the soil ph to this desired level?
This Value of Ideal soil pH could make a huge difference and really an important step for those looking to grow bountiful gardens. Because most of the nutrient absorption at root level happens at this ideal ph level. You may be adding a lot of fertilizers, supplements like micronutrient powders and stuff like that regularly to your plant, but if it’s not producing good results and you still have anaemic plants, then you should suspect something wrong with the soil PH, either it’s not favourable to your plant or the plant is unable to adapt to the ph changes.
For most plants, the ideal ph has to be SLIGHTLY ACIDIC, like around 6.5. but this doesn’t mean that plants cannot grow outside this range. Places with lots of vegetation and rain, such as forests, tend to produce acidic soils whereas Dry and arid zones like deserts are more likely to be alkaline. We will learn about acid loving plants and alkaline soil preferring plants later in this episode.
How do I test Soil PH at home?
Let me demonstrate 3 easy ways to test your soil PH at home. This soil testing is actually fun and you can share this with your kids to teach them simple science or chemistry.
The First Method is using Litmus Paper. This is simple school chemistry. And this is not expensive. You can buy this simple litmus paper kit at any stationary store or even online. This is just litmus paper with color chart showing a PH value for each color that matches with your test result. PH of 7 is Neutral, PH below 7 is acidic and above 7 is alkaline. The most important thing is to use distilled water for all these tests you conduct, because the PH of distilled water is neutral.
So, How to Test Soil Using Litmus Paper Method?
Collect one tablespoon of soil from your garden either from container or from ground. You can take the soil from a little deeper like 2 inches below the soil.
- Add equal amount of distilled water – that’s 1:1 ratio. We are taking distilled water because it has neutral PH of 7. You can also take water from your water purifier, test it with litmus paper first.
- So, for 1 table spoon of soil you would add 1 tablespoon of water.
- Now nicely mix this by Stirring for few seconds.
- Let it sit for 10 minutes.
- Start stirring the sample again and now dip the litmus paper to take your measurement. Wait for few minutes for color change and then match it with the color coding chart that came along with your litmus paper kit.
Purchase Litmus Paper kit: https://amzn.to/3jKY4ec
The Second Method is a rough and easy DIY method you can try at home to know whether your soil is acidic or alkaline.
- Take a small amount of soil from your garden or container in a small glass.
- Now Pour some vinegar to this soil sample. If it fizzes and bubbles you have an alkaline soil because the alkaline content in soil reacts with acid like vinegar which is chemically acetic acid.
- Take another soil sample from your garden. Here for demonstration purpose, I know that this is an acidic soil. Now Add baking soda one or two teaspoons and mix it with soil.
- Then wet the soil baking soda mix with distilled water. If it fizzes and bubbles your soil is acidic, because the acidic content in soil reacts with a base or alkaline stuff like baking soda. That’s it!
The Third Method is using Soil PH Testers – There are two types of soil ph meters. Manual type or digital soil PH testers. Which one of these to choose? And These are easy to use portable gadgets with probes to insert into the soil. These give instant readings. These manual type of probe testers are not so reliable but they are inexpensive and handy. But These digital testers are more accurate but little expensive. These are actually 3 in one or 4 in one meters which also test Temperature, Light and Moisture along with PH. These factors are also important for gardening. We will discuss in detail about these meters in some other episode and how to make use of these for max benefit in gardening.
PURCHASE LINKS:
Manual Ph meter:
Digital Ph Tester:
How do I adjust my soil PH if its too Alkaline or even neutral to achieve the ideal PH around 6.5.
- Rain Water: If it’s a rainy season and if soil is neutral or alkaline, you don’t have to do anything. Just check the soil PH after rains. Rain makes the soil acidic naturally.
- Adding Compost to your soil: This is the basic requirement. At least 20 to 30 percent of your soil or potting mix should have a well decomposed manure like cowdung or horse dung or leaf compost or even vermicompost. If you add compost to your soil now, you need to wait for at least a month or two to see the ph change effect because this is a gradual process.
- Vinegar: White Vinegar about 1 or 2 teaspoons per litre or water can be used to lower the soil ph drop. Watering with this solution thoroughly once a month or even once in 15 days will help.
- Coffee ground or even Tea waste: The tannic acid present in this will lower the ph of your soil slightly. You can even add used tea or coffee waste to your plants to lower ph.
- Lemon Juice: Some even recommend adding 1 -2 teaspoons of lemon juice per liter of water and watering with this solution once in a month.
- Shredded Pine barks or any evergreen barks if available can be used to mulch on the top soil to make your soil acidic.
- Sphagnum Peat Moss is another remedy to lower soil ph.
- Alum : chemically called Potassium Aluminum Sulfate is a compound commonly used in water purification. This is available in powder or in crystal form. You can powder the crystals and use about 5 – 10 gms per liter of water and water your plants monthly once. You can watch a detailed episode on Alum and its uses in Gardening from a link in description below.
- Chemical or commercial products containing elemental sulfur can also be used to lower soil ph.
- And Lastly, If your soil is too acidic and you may want to raise the soil ph a bit higher, then you can use wood ash as a natural remedy for this job. Wood ash is a cheap remedy to make your soil alkaline.
Purchase Links: Alum: https://amzn.to/3JNvHGN
Wood Ash: https://amzn.to/3JNjPV6
