No. A pretty hot discussion last year on here, iirc.

Get a professional soil test.

Agree with Gumby ;-) ... and I have one of the Chinese cheapies.

Cheers

PC

Check the soil forum for that discussion on pH meters.

Gumpy's right (couldn't resist), the ones you're gonna buy for home use for a few tomatoes are wildly inaccurate, a pain to maintain (keep clean, calibrate, etc...), and only last a few years at best.

pH, through normal soil amending, doesn't change rapidly enough to justify the expense and maintenance of the better meters. Here, where I live, a basic soil test (which includes pH) through the Ag. Ext. only costs $7. In most of the U.S., the cost is either the same, or not much more. There are a few places where you need to have it done by a private lab, but it's still better than a meter you'll regret buying.

Agree. Meters are a waste of $$ and to often give very misleading results. Hundreds of tons of tomatoes successfully grown annually without them ever laying eyes on a pH meter. ;-)

Besides, aren't you growing in containers? All the decent soil-less potting mixes for containers are already pH balanced so a meter to use on them would be a double waste of $$.

Dave

The best answer to your question has to depend on what you're trying to achieve. Do you have reason to suspect that your soil pH is off-kilter? What's wrong with your tomatoes? Or is this just curiosity?

A professional soil test is best. To be perfectly honest, for a casual interest, if you want to do a number of tests, you're best served with pH strips. (Just Google them.) You can get those VASTLY more cheaply than a meter, and they're good to within 0.5 of a pH unit. If you find something worrisome with those, you might want to spill some dollars and get a decent electronic meter, but even those require some skilled handling to use them correctly.

Dan I'm curious about every thing. Don't like to leave any stones unturned.

Thanks Dan, I know I'm putting you on the spot. Can you recommend one so I can keep playing.

As I said, just Google "pH strips" and you'll come up with loads of options. You're looking at $10 or so for 100 test strips. Walmart has loads. Swimming pool, hot tub, hydroponics and aquarium supply stores have them too. They are also used for personal health -- urine, saliva tests.

Should you decide to send to a lab let the folks know where on this glorious planet you are located and ask over on the soil forum to recommend a testing lab. Besides the lab testing being more accurate they will also tell you how much of what to add.

In CT the CAES will provide testing results at no charge to a resident - as many as you like. It also incl the other nutrients needed to be successful in the garden.

This pH meter question seems to surface often with pretty much the same responses. What's the most accurate way to measure soil pH

Keep in mind it takes months to change the pH of the soil. And sometimes you may want to leave the pH in its natural state to grow certain plants.

Also the best time to amend the soil is in the fall. Unless of course you want to use compost tea. But getting soil nutrients right also takes time.

You know sometimes we get so caught up in all our experimentation that we insure defeat of the primary goal - whether that goal be curing cancer or growing tomatoes. ;-)

The more complex one tries to make a simple process the more it is doomed to failure simply because of all the complexity we have introduced into it. That is one reason why scientific research, why advancements and improvements, must first begin with a good working knowledge of standard practices and must be narrow in scope and focus.

Just something to consider with all your experiments.

Dave

I cannot change the pH of my soil. I simply cannot. Not in months, years, or decades. As I said, because of the strong alkalinity of my irrigation water. This is a well recognized problem around here, and probably in other places. Local plant biologists verify this. The stores will try to sell you sulfur up the kazoo, but it simply doesn't work. Many people wash their soil with dilute acid, which is a pricey, and very temporary proposition. So think hard about it before you try to do it, and see if you can find anyone who has succeeded.

If you are growing tomatoes in containers then there is no need to test soil pH. First there is no real "soil" in standard potting mixes (AKA soil-less mixes). And second, all standard bagged potting soils have been pH adjusted, typically to the slightly acidic conditions (6.3 to 6.8) the vast majority of plants - tomatoes included - prefer.

Now if you create your own potting mix and ad lib it (rather than following the common 'recipes', which also include a pH adjuster), evaluating and adjusting pH may make sense. And I agree that test strips you can purchase anywhere will give you as accurate an assessment as anything else. Just be sure to use any home test kits with distilled water rather than tap water. And it might make sense to test your water supply as well......excessively alkaline irrigation water can throw everything off.

To the OP: If you would like to read more about soil tests results then look here:
http://www.gardenweb.com/gardenweb/query/soil-test-results/topic=soil