Over the years I have bough several cheapy pH meters and they all proved to be waste of money.

I have also bought and used litmus paper. OK but nut that good.

LATEST FIND:

I went to PetsMart yesterday. They have so many pH Test kits . Those are mostly for fish tanks.

Anyway, I bought one that is in liquid form with a test range of. 6.0 to 7.4. I though my garden soil's pH must be higher than 6.0 and under 7.4 So I bought it. @ $7.00 that can do 250 tests !!!. Wow. And got a pretty good result.>>> pH = ~ 6.6

HOW TO DO IT:

get about a half spoon full of soil sample..: add about a TBS of water... Let it soak ... stir ... Filter through coffee filter ... pour some into the test tube ... add 3 drops of the solution ....Shake ... let it sit ... Compare the color to the pH card (comes w/ the kit)

YOU ARE DONE>

I have taped the test tube to the color card. It matches 6.6 to 6.8. That is almost perfect.Better than I ever expected.

For 7 bucks, I can do over 200 tests around the yard. But so far my raised beds seem to be in perfect shape, pH WISE.

Tomorrow I am going to take soil samples to the County office. So I will find out how the lab test results of pH will come out.

Sey