"Rick McGreal" wrote in message
...
Anyone know how do you tell if your soil is acidic?
You have a garden full of Rhoddies ?

B-)
Something a little more scientific is what I was thinking of!

You do a pH test on the soil.

Can you buy litmus paper at garden centres?
Or I suppose now there will be better, probably electronic, versions
around
now....
I'll see if I can see one at ours

Hi Rick,

You can buy a very simple kit at your gc. Basically its a small testube that
comes with a capsule (like a vitamin pill). Into the testube you put the
contents of the capsule, into that a little of your soil and add some water,
the kits come with full instructions and are around 2euro here. The water in
the tube turns green here, which means I have alkaline soil, there is a
colour chart on the packaging for you to compare. Its very simple, gives no
ph readings etc but it tells you basically what you need to know. A tip I
recieved was to take a teaspoon of soil from about an inch below the top
from several parts of the garden, mix all of em together and use a little of
this mixture in the tube, I was also told to use rain instead of tap water,
but then we have very limy water here from our own well so that may have
been the reason for that.

Happy testing
Shan