I moved into this the house I am living in 9 years ago. It was a new house in the middle of a cow pasture. I had the local extension agent do a complete soil test and it came back acidic with a PH of 4.7 I did a bit of liming and 2 years later a new soil test was PH 5.5. Since then I have ignored the PH. Today I was looking through a second hand store and found a cheap PH meter made by Rapidtest. The needle was on 7.0 in the air and so I spent a buck. When I got home, I went around testing here and there. I found PH numbers from 7.5-9.0. I figure I wasted a buck. Then I tested some 3% Hydrogen peroxide and got PH of 5.5. I checked on the web and that seems to be an accurate number. So I think the PH meter does work. So, I will do another soil test but how can I safely lower the PH 2 points for my raspberries and blueberries and maybe 1 point for the rest. Is it possible my PH has changed this much? How often do people add acid to their soil? Thanks for any information.
Greg
You may not have wasted the $. There is probably a small bullet shaped piece of metal on the tip of your pH meter. Take steel wool and shine it up. Do this every time you use the pH meter, it needs to be clean for the reactions to occur so pH can be determined. Also the soil should be moist of it to work.
Once you recheck your pH you may not have a problem. If you do want to lower the pH adding powdered sulfur is one way. The amounts to add will very depending on your soil texture, sandy, loam, clay loam, etc. The more sand the more sulfur to add, the more clay the less sulfur to add.
Blueberries require a pH of 4.5
Raspberries, pH 5.0-5.5
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