...doesn't matter. In fact, the guidelines of watering with a pH around 6.5 could actually harm your plants in certain circumstances.

It doesn't matter because there is a huge colony of bacteria and fungi living in your soil, and you feed them, not your plant directly. They will use what you give them and the pH of the SOIL will ADJUST ITS SELF in a properly running system.

Now, I'm not saying pH isn't important, because the pH of the SOIL is very important. It's just how you feed the soil that is a lot less important, and one doesn't necessarily have the effect you'd think it does. An example is Earth Juice Nutes. Starting with water with a pH of 7 to 8, adding EJ nutes brings the pH down to 3.5-4 or so. Conventional wisdom might say this going to kill your plants, but in fact EJ nutes have a great rep. and produce a great product. I've been using them for over 10 years, and they are a great way to fine-tune your system, I add EJ in addition to castings, guanos, etc.

Now, a here's a case of hydro growers going organic... a couple of folks I'm teaching organic gardening methods to. These guys check the pH of everything, and have adjusted their watering to a pH of 6.5. Technically, perfect. Now, we started the grow with a SOIL pH of around 6.7. After watering for a while with water at 6.5, the SOIL pH is now almost exactly 7. How did this happen? Well, when you mix soil, you typically have some ingredients with low pH, and others with high pH to buffer the soil so it doesn't turn too acidic. Usually lime or crushed sea shells/coral is used for this, and it's usually balanced against peat moss, with a low pH. If you make your own soil mix, usually dolomite or hydrated lime is added for the same reason. Commercial mixes will have different levels of buffering. This is important to understand, because some commercial mixes like Fox Farm Ocean Forest has a lot of sea shell, and in the case of the hydro guys going organic, adding pH UP was too much in combination with this particular soil mix. Luckily, I make them test the soil often so this was recognized, and now they are not using pH UP and watering them with un-adjusted EJ nute mix that has a super low pH.

I have held off on posting this because it could possibly be confusing, but if you are an organic gardener your progress as a grower could be hampered by not understanding this. Organic medium is rich with life and nutrients and it's just not as simple as setting your pH and ppm correctly like hydro. You need to have some idea of what the interaction between the live soil you are using and what you feed them.

On a related subject, canned feeding programs are a horrible idea to follow in organic gardening for much the same reason. Every system uses nutes differently depending on the vigor of the plant, how much light, co2, and root area the plant has. This is another reason to buy a soil test kit. You need one to come up with YOUR OWN nute program. Without having at least a ballpark idea of what's already in your soil, how can you properly feed them? Well... if you have enough experience you might be able to just tell. If you haven't grown for years already, you might need some help. The idea is to keep the soil in balance, to do this you need to know how much nutes the plant uses in it's various stages in life, and add nutes accordingly. If you do it right, you won't have salt buildup, pH will never be a problem, you'll never have to flush (yup, that's right, if you flush, you f'ed up) and you can save a ton of money and get better results growing by re-using your soil. Re-used soil already has all the microbes you need so you won't need to spend big $$$ on these additives, and you will notice your 2nd crop on the same soil IS BETTER THAN THE 1ST. Yes, it gets better over time, and if you throw out your soil you are doing yourself and the planet a disservice. When I re-use soil I just add castings, guanos, and more lime.
Dorje113 Reviewed by Dorje113 on . Watering pH in Organic Soil Based Systems ...doesn't matter. In fact, the guidelines of watering with a pH around 6.5 could actually harm your plants in certain circumstances. It doesn't matter because there is a huge colony of bacteria and fungi living in your soil, and you feed them, not your plant directly. They will use what you give them and the pH of the SOIL will ADJUST ITS SELF in a properly running system. Now, I'm not saying pH isn't important, because the pH of the SOIL is very important. It's just how you feed the Rating: 5