If you can find it, litmus paper from the drug store can be used, but it doesn't provide any way to calibrate the results. While I don't support the value of home DIY kits for general soil testing, the pH kits are far more accurate than guessing and you will get a reasonably good result. Be aware that soil pH can vary rather widely from one area of the garden to another and can be influenced by things like concrete foundations or walkways.

Most plants can tolerate a pretty broad range of soil pH, so the concern would be when your soils are skewed too strongly in either direction. A pH of 6.0 to 7.5 (or slightly acidic to neutral) is going to b preferred by the largest number of plants.

As a chemist, I don't trust any of those store purchased test kits or strips for the same reason that Gardengal states. They don't offer any standards for you to use to calibrate your results against. I also haven't seen any readily available pH strips that do anything other than telling you that something is acidic or basic.

Don't know if this is true for your area, but here in NC the local Agricultural Extension Agencies offer free soil testing for pH and a long list of other components for free. They even provide the soil sample boxes for you to collect your samples in.

Excellent! That is what I was hoping to find out. I keep eyeing those test kits and wondering as to their true value! I have been amending my soil blindly with manures and humus up until this point and would really like to start doing so in a more educated fashion.

Thank you for the tip in contacting the Agricultural Extension Agency. I will be following up on that tip. I believe that my soil runs in the slightly more acidic pH based on how my hydrangeas react to the soil during bloom. But I would like a much more reliable way of determining. Thank you for the excellent advice once again!

Tracy!

Glad to be of help Tracy!

If your hydrangeas are blue, your soil is acidic. If they are pink, it isn't. :)

Free soil tests are often done by the university extension here too. Master Gardener or home horticulture program.

Tracy, adding animal manures and humus every year should not add excessive nutrients to your soil. Typically, they are low enough in nutrients that it they can be used all season long without risk. The only problem could be from inferior bagged products that have other ingredients added. What manures and humus do best is make the soil more friable.

I know a woman who lives on a pig farm. She has the most beautiful gardens. Every year she enters flowers into the state fair and almost always usually wins multiple ribbons. The only thing she does to her soil is top dress it with pig manure in the fall. Her garden soil is so friable, that when she plants, all she has to do is push the spade into the soil,lean it back, and wa-la, a hole. Her soil is so perfect she doesn't have to dig.