I would use unsoftened water because the sodium exchange might not set well with plants. Just my 2 cents....

I agree with bikerdoc that unsoftened water is better than softened. Water softeners replace Ca and Mg ions, which are useful to plants, with Na ions, which are not useful. Personally, I use unsoftened city water. I also add a little over a tablespoon of vinegar per gallon because my water is quite hard. The pH range you mentioned is a good one to target. If you have a very high pH, or find it difficult to reduce pH, you could try testing alkalinity as well. Alkalinity acts to neutralize acid additions while maintaining pH. Adding sufficient acid will neutralize alkalinity, however, and pH will drop much more quickly as alkalinity is neutralized. A good alkalinity range is 0-100ppm. Mine is over 300ppm which is why I have to add a significant amount of vinegar to get my pH down. Really though, getting your pH somewhere in the low to mid 5's is probably all you need to concern yourself with in order to achieve ideal water.

-Chris

Awesome thank you guys very much! do you have any certain kits you like to use? Or a place to get them? I was debating on getting one of the pH meter readers if the 20 something dollars is worth it?

I think my mom's pool kit tests for alkalinity and ph so I may snag it to try and see what my straight well's levels are

Only had ph and stupid thing only went down to 6.2.... so needless to say I'm gonna have to get my own

Well I just collected 5 gal of rain water so I'll hang onto that for now :) maybe I'll grab a ph meter when I see a decent one on sale soon.