Help with checking pH

[fiddyonefiddy]

The $20 pH meter from Lowes works fine for me. You can mix ferts in a gallon of water, then add lime as necessary to bring the pH somewhere around the low 6s. Meter also has a fert gauge, which I think is useless. The catch is you have to strip the oxidation off the prongs if it's been sitting for a few days. It comes with a little scouring strip to do that, but it wears out pretty fast. Gotta see if I can find some more or maybe use something else to scour.

go get some white scotch brite pads from a autobody supply or any bodyshop will sell you one for a buck.or theyll probably give you some worn out ones for free.worn out for them is not worn out for you.will still work fine for what you are going to do with it.
i use oakton also i have the ph tester1

fiddyonefiddy Reviewed by fiddyonefiddy on 03-24-2008. Help with checking pH So I've never checked pH before and I'm a little confused on how this is to be done. I have one of the liquid testing kits with the little capsules and the container with the color chart. So container has two lines. The first line, near the bottom, designates where you fill the soil up to, and the second line, way up at the top, designates where to fill the water to. It says to take your soil, filter out anything like rocks out of it, dry it out and mix it up good, and fill the container up Rating: 5

[stinkyattic]

Lime as a pH up? Lime is best used as a SOIL amendment, and use a proper pH up to fix a troublesome combination of your source water plus ferts. If you want to add calcium, use calmag. Soil pH range is 6.4-6.8 btw. Since most soils will tend to drift lower rather than higher, set your pH to 6.8 to water, unless you observe something else in your own setup.