the ideal range is 6.5 - 6.8 for your run-off water. there are several different types of pH testers out there, just get one that best fits you, this can be ones that you stick in the soil or the paper strips. just in case you dont know how to do the pH test of your soil with the paper strips, simply test your water that you are going to use. If you need to adjust the pH level there are a couple of things that you can use that are household items to raise and lower your pH, Vinegar will lower your water pH very nicely, but dont use it all the time, this will give you the chance to go get some pH lower from your nursery if you havent gotten it already. Once you have your tap water at the correct pH, you want to simply flush your plants with 3x the amount of medium that you have for the plant, on the last gallon of water is when you want to check the pH or you can test each time you drop some water thru the medium, this will give you the ability to watch the pH of the soil go down to the correct level. I personally have 2 different ways of checking the soil pH, this lets me make sure that it is good, most people will only test one way, so do what makes most sense and you are most comfortable with as long as the result is the same, doesnt matter which way you test it.

As for the medium, the one at agway is the good, but you basically want that to have as little peat as possible or you can actually mix your own. There are places like agway and i did see it in walmart where you can buy just the manuare. The only thing is i dont know what the manuare to humus is the correct ratio. I went to a local nursery and they had a mix that had very little peat and manuare, my plants now love me ALOT for the change that i made.

Hopefully this was useful