Thanks to all for your responses to my PH question. I am truly a lot better
educated now. My inclination is tending towards the color indicator using a
sample of the soil with a measured amount of water, and then comparing the
color to that of a chart. I was looking at the meter option for the
convenience of being able to test multiple areas quickly.

I know that my gardens require an application of lime, and I want to be able
to do it accurately and know when I've added enough without having to guess.






"Cyberiade.it Anonymous Remailer" wrote in
message eriade.it...
The soil type pH meters are not accurate in most situations. You should
get a real pH meter (Daigger has good prices) or some soil test kits. If
you get a pH meter, you need a calibration standard too. You can mix your
soil with about 2x amount of water thouroughly, let the soil settle, and
measure the pH of the water.

--more than accurate enough for gardening: pHydrion paper--

That depends on what kind of pH paper you have. The standard pH paper
goes from pH 2-12 which is a very wide range. In soils we are dealing
with maybe 5.5-7.5 for which standard pH paper may not be able to
distinguish this critical range accurately. Better to get the soil test
kits which are designed to measure in this range.

Yes, I know the standard pHydrion roll you're likely to get if you don't
specify anything is fairly wide range; however,
they also make very nice shortrange papers, e.g., pH 3.0 - 7.5,
pH 6.0-8.0, 6.5-9.5: hundreds of tests for under $10.

Kay