So I went to Home Depot and rolled out with a soil ph,npk kit with little pills to break apart and add to the soil and and water mix in these neat color coded tubes. I also bought these ph strip things from the pool section because I am looking for indicators of garden soil ph direction rather than absolute accuracy. And I saw a pool oriented ph and everything kit with 5 bottlez of liquid drops to change water color so for 12 bucks and a third opinion I brought it home also.

So I get home after work and test the tap water. And because I have a hard working dehydrator, which I think is making distilled water, which is called for by preference in the test kit literature, I test the distillate bucket water. And then after being run back into the house by one of Alabama's infamous frog strangling afternon thunderstorms, I recognized the opportunity to run out and sample the ponding water collecting in a lower spot of the yard, which really comes off the forrested hill where the house sits surrounded by 2 acres of forrest litter. I swear I thought the leaf litter would make the water acidic. I do not know why.

So it come out that the tapwater is 7, the distillate more toward 6 if not 5.5, and the mud puddle was closer to 8.

I can understand the tap water being fiddled with to prevent degradation of the pipes and leaching as the detroit lead problem teaches is a problem. I was not ready for the disparity between the rainwater and the distillate. Differences in Ph are large changes.

I wanted to test the tomato soil relative to doing what I can to boost fall production of the spring plants and growth of the fall crop plantings. I was suspicious that they are not in soil that is acidic enough because some are laggards and the solarfire heat loving variety tomato and others are growing but not in a spectacular fashion. Before I did that, I wanted to understand the water I would use for the test. I was not ready for the wide difference in results.

Which water should I use on the plants generally? We have tapwater irrigation run on a second agricultural water meter. Or should I get rain barrels?