If you want to give the plants optimal living conditions, the right location is not enough. If the soil values are not right, the plants remain small and take care of themselves. If you want to track down the problem, it can be very helpful to have a soil analysis carried out. In this way you not only find out the pH value, but also which nutrients are contained in the substrate.

With a simple strip test, anyone can determine the pH of the soil

This is how Grandma determined the pH value

Our grandmothers, who did not yet have access to the services of a laboratory, had their own recipes for finding out whether the soil is acidic, neutral or alkaline.

  • Take two mugs.
  • In one, put distilled water and a packet of baking soda.
  • Pour some vinegar into the other container.
  • Now put a little bit of your garden soil in each cup.

If foam forms in the container with the vinegar, the soil is alkaline. If it hisses when you crumble the soil into the baking soda-water mixture, the substrate is acidic. If nothing happens, you tend to have neutral garden soil.

In this way you can at least tend to determine what the soil conditions are like.

Simply soil analysis using test sticks

If you would like to determine the soil values yourself, you can use one of the test sets available in specialist shops.

  • First remove about 100 g of soil and put the soil in a sufficiently large, clean glass.
  • Mix the substrate with 100 ml distilled water.
  • After a rest period of about 10 minutes, hold the litmus strip in the liquid.
  • You can read the pH value of the soil from the discoloration.

The professional soil analysis

You can have this done by some agricultural testing and research institutes. The simple variant, which is usually sufficient for the hobby garden, costs around twenty euros. With this you can:

  • the humus content
  • the pH,
  • the content of potassium, magnesium and phosphate

detect.

More complex analyses, which cost from EUR 50, also include the values of nitrogen, various trace elements and any heavy metals contained in the soil.

tips

Whether vegetable or flower bed, orchard or lawn, you need a separate soil sample for each garden area. This should consist of ten punctures that are as even as possible and distributed over the area. Take the samples very carefully, because only then is the soil test really meaningful.

Category:

Care tips