majorcatfish
Garden Master
i know this might be a gottcha thing ..but have anyone ever purchased one of these kits and if you did what do you think of the results..?
soil testing kits
- Thread starter majorcatfish
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flowerbug
Garden Master
no. if you keep returning organic materials, food scraps, egg shells, a little wood ashes, pieces of charcoal, etc. to a garden and throw in a few road kills here or there you should eventually end up with great garden soil.
it's been working well here for sure. nothing fancy, gardens keep improving, plants usually grow well.
if you suspect something is really wrong, pH is about all i would check and then amend with composted materials, worms, etc. you can use extract of red cabbage as an indicator for pH. i've not even bothered with that in the past 10yrs. observation of what grows decently and where is good enough for what i'm doing.
it is simple, but almost all life feeds on other life and most organic compounds are slightly acidic. knowing a little about what makes up a good soil helps, but if you have a start with sandy soil just add a little clay (not much is needed) and keep adding organic materials as you can scrounge them up. let the worms/soil community break it down and keep at it. observe and adjust as you go. more patience than rocket science. the big-ag people love to sell you things and they may appear to help but often they are poisons when used and will end up ruining your soil community.
my main heavy feeder booster is what comes out of the small worm farm which takes care of almost all our food prep scraps. that restores some of the garden soil (i bring some back in from the gardens each spring so the worms can work on it for a year until the next spring). that is the main N for the heaviest feeding plants. after that year i'll rotate plant through that area for a few more years/crops so it stretches the use out until i get back to that garden.
it's been working well here for sure. nothing fancy, gardens keep improving, plants usually grow well.
if you suspect something is really wrong, pH is about all i would check and then amend with composted materials, worms, etc. you can use extract of red cabbage as an indicator for pH. i've not even bothered with that in the past 10yrs. observation of what grows decently and where is good enough for what i'm doing.
it is simple, but almost all life feeds on other life and most organic compounds are slightly acidic. knowing a little about what makes up a good soil helps, but if you have a start with sandy soil just add a little clay (not much is needed) and keep adding organic materials as you can scrounge them up. let the worms/soil community break it down and keep at it. observe and adjust as you go. more patience than rocket science. the big-ag people love to sell you things and they may appear to help but often they are poisons when used and will end up ruining your soil community.
my main heavy feeder booster is what comes out of the small worm farm which takes care of almost all our food prep scraps. that restores some of the garden soil (i bring some back in from the gardens each spring so the worms can work on it for a year until the next spring). that is the main N for the heaviest feeding plants. after that year i'll rotate plant through that area for a few more years/crops so it stretches the use out until i get back to that garden.
flowerbug
Garden Master
oh, btw, for calibrating the cabbage juice to have an idea of how it looks in reaction you can take dilutions of baking soda water and see how that looks and then on the other end of the scale you can use vinegar.
so, a very low tech and inexpensive way of checking your pH... and you get to eat the cabbage.
so, a very low tech and inexpensive way of checking your pH... and you get to eat the cabbage.
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majorcatfish
Garden Master
ok thanks for your input
