A comment on my blueberry bush post made me rethink my pH testing

I posted a picture of my blueberries looking sad and yellow last spring. A guy named Bob replied saying my leaves looked chlorotic and asked if I actually tested the soil pH. I had been using those cheap stick meters from the garden center for years. Bob told me to get a proper chemical test kit from a local extension office. I spent $12 on one from the UGA extension in Athens and found out my soil was at 7.2, way too alkaline. I amended with sulfur in the fall and this year my bushes are dark green and loaded with fruit. Has anyone else had a similar wake-up call about a basic tool they were using wrong?

2 comments

2 Comments

paul1172d ago

A cheap stick meter from the garden center" - man those things are basically toys for adults who want to feel like scientists. I used one for years thinking my soil was perfect until a friend made me use the real test kit and found out my pH was basically moonshot territory. Fun way to learn that $12 and a little patience beats that random guessing game every time.

price.tyler2d ago

Right, the "moonshot" thing is exactly what happened to me. I had my garden center stick meter sitting in my raised bed for three years, telling me everything was fine. Then I did one of those $10 Luster Leaf test kits, the one with the little capsules you mix with water, and my azaleas were basically living in battery acid. The dumb part is I could have just taken a cup of dirt to my county extension office for free, but nobody thinks about that when you're standing in the home depot aisle. So yeah, that $12 kit plus twenty minutes of following the directions actually tells you something real, not just a needle bouncing around on some Chinese plastic probe.