On Mon, 27 Jun 2011 16:55:52 +0100, Warwick
wrote:

On Sun, 26 Jun 2011 19:20:24 +0000, iliveinazoo wrote:


Holy Moly, that's a great response from everyone thanks so much.

Good point on the location: Southampton.

I'll be quite close to the New Forest as well so the soil conditions may
be a bit acidic. Is there such a thing as a soil PH tester? Will an
aquarium PH tester work because I've got plenty of them?

I don't know about aquarium testers. I've never seen one.

Soil PH testers are cheap and readily available. The ones I use now and
again are a test tube affair with some powder in. You chuck in a bit of
soil (not from right on the surface), add some water, shake and then
compare the colour of the water with a colour chart.

I notice though that Betterware are doing an eletronic one that you stick
in the ground for only £4. I suppose that multiple smaples of a larger
garden could be useful as it *could* vary.


I got a bimetallic two-pronged (one copper, one aluminium) tester from
Wilkinson for about three quid a year or two ago, mainly as a toy. I
wonder if it's the same? No external power source needed, of course.
It tests both pH and moisture, but I've no idea how accurate the thing
is. The card it came on had a list of plants on the back, specifying
their pH requirements -- but unhelpfully giving the common names, in
the US dialect.
[...]

--
Mike.