PH is very important and you must get atleast the test strips that cost like $5 for 100. I had a new cool meter and never thought to calibrate it once. Ya, lets just say big mistake. I check my soil runoff by flushing with a 6.3 and get a 6.5 out. Thats not too bad but tells me there is more alkaline shit in the soil because it went up .2, so it is really at say 6.7 which is good.

I then think to calibrate the meter and oh yeah big suprize. Im sitting in a 7.01 test solution and the meter reads 8.4... OH NOOOOO

That means this whole time I was adding 4.7 ph solution to my soil instead of 6.2 ph. This is horrible for nutrient uptake and why I was seeing such poor plants with slow growth and small bud sites.

Last time I go without a PH meter test, almost killed everything. luckily I have two meters and this was initially how I found them to be off.