Understanding ph.

[Worth1]

It has came to my attention that maybe not everyone quite understands the ph scale and how it effects growing things.
It is also very important in home canning.
The ph scale is logarithmic.
In other words a ph of 3 is ten times more acidic than one of 4 and 100 times more acidic than one of 5.
And if I am right 1000 times more acidic than one of 6.

So with this in mind lets go out in the garden and take a soil sample.
I did a while back and it was around 8.5.
Tomatoes like 6.5.
So this told me that my soil was 100 times more alkali than it should be.
That is a lot.

Now lets look at canning, to safely can in a hot water bath you need a ph of 4.6.
If you add enough citric acid to bring it down to 3.6 you now have ten times more acid than you need.
Here are a couple of links to help you better understand what I am getting at.
http://www.sciencebuddies.org/scienc...spHScale.shtml
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sourc...gGVFz6TDiFH9Cg

I hope this help clear up any confusion and please check to see if I made any mistakes.

Worth

[ginger2778]

Excellent and very useful post Worth. Many thanks.

[Cole_Robbie]

The nutrients that every plant needs have a spectrum of ph in which they are available. The 6.5 number comes from the ph where the greatest number of spectrums overlap.

[Worth1]

Originally Posted by ginger2778

Excellent and very useful post Worth. Many thanks.

Thanks Marsha.
When I first got the idea I was afraid to post this.
I didn't want to sound condescending.
But I have remembered many posts here in the past where folks said there wasnt that much difference between a ph of 6 and 7 and I just kept my mouth shut.
Native plants will tell you a lot about soil.
Everything that likes an alkaline soil loves it at my place.
They thrive.
Worth

[Worth1]

Originally Posted by Cole_Robbie

The nutrients that every plant needs have a spectrum of ph in which they are available. The 6.5 number comes from the ph where the greatest number of spectrums overlap.

So true then there is the soil type in a true clay soil not black gumbo the soil is made up of platelets.
The nutrients get locked in between the platelets and plants like tomatoes cant get to them.
This platelets are rock on a microscopic level.

Worth

[AlittleSalt]

Worth, we live about 2.5 hours north of Austin. We live in an odd area where the topsoil is made up of about 50% silt, 30% red, blue, yellow, and grey clay, and 20% sand. The very small rocks we dig up are sandstone and iron rock. Two feet below ground - it's nothing but clay (Mostly red).

Before any kind of amendments to the soil at all, in 2010, the PH was around 5.5. We moved a lot of topsoil to the garden from our place /area and added countless wheelbarrows of oak leaves and every kind of compostable material we could find. (Included: green weeds, plain newspaper, old phone books shredded, egg shells, vege and banana peelings, human hair...everything organic we could think of.

The soil in 2010 was powdery except the chunks of clay right below the ground. You had to use a grubbing hoe after the first few inches. When trying to water, the soil pushed aside the water and it looked like soil from out in Midland or El Paso.

We double-dug about 2 feet deep from 2010-2013 hoping to improve what everyone else called, "Dead Dirt" or "Blow Sand" into something useful. Always, we dug in oak leaves. Each year, the digging got easier and we found the oak leaves that we had buried were no longer there (Well, not in the form of a leaf anyway.)

PH tests in 2014 in the exact same space/garden are from 6.4 to 6.9. Over the past week, we have been upgrading the fence around this 45' x 45' garden to accommodate trees we had to cut down (no longer shaded areas) and to grow vining plants and flowers (Morning Glories). I've noticed our soil improvements are about 18" deep, and at 2' it is still red clay.

Wish I was 25 and healthy again, I would triple dig.

Adding all the household organic stuff and oak leaves seems to have made a difference. I have no idea about the fertility of the garden? Most importantly, it grows huge tomato plants, lots of volunteer tomatoes, and this garden has given me a sense of being useful.

[Worth1]

Originally Posted by AlittleSalt

Worth, we live about 2.5 hours north of Austin. We live in an odd area where the topsoil is made up of about 50% silt, 30% red, blue, yellow, and grey clay, and 20% sand. The very small rocks we dig up are sandstone and iron rock. Two feet below ground - it's nothing but clay (Mostly red).

Before any kind of amendments to the soil at all, in 2010, the PH was around 5.5. We moved a lot of topsoil to the garden from our place /area and added countless wheelbarrows of oak leaves and every kind of compostable material we could find. (Included: green weeds, plain newspaper, old phone books shredded, egg shells, vege and banana peelings, human hair...everything organic we could think of.

The soil in 2010 was powdery except the chunks of clay right below the ground. You had to use a grubbing hoe after the first few inches. When trying to water, the soil pushed aside the water and it looked like soil from out in Midland or El Paso.

We double-dug about 2 feet deep from 2010-2013 hoping to improve what everyone else called, "Dead Dirt" or "Blow Sand" into something useful. Always, we dug in oak leaves. Each year, the digging got easier and we found the oak leaves that we had buried were no longer there (Well, not in the form of a leaf anyway.)

PH tests in 2014 in the exact same space/garden are from 6.4 to 6.9. Over the past week, we have been upgrading the fence around this 45' x 45' garden to accommodate trees we had to cut down (no longer shaded areas) and to grow vining plants and flowers (Morning Glories). I've noticed our soil improvements are about 18" deep, and at 2' it is still red clay.

Wish I was 25 and healthy again, I would triple dig.

Adding all the household organic stuff and oak leaves seems to have made a difference. I have no idea about the fertility of the garden? Most importantly, it grows huge tomato plants, lots of volunteer tomatoes, and this garden has given me a sense of being useful.

Okay let me make life easier on you.
You dont have to dig that deep to improve the soil.
Believe it or not you only need about 6 to 8 inches of good soil to grow tomatoes in.

All of the feeder roots run along the surface just like a tree.
Many a time I have pulled plants only to find millions of roots right below the surface.
In this soil is where they pick up nutrients.
Not way down deep.

The rain forest is a good example of this.
My yard is another.

I looked at the county you live in and it is a hodgepodge of different soils.
Just like many other places in Texas.
And yes it has areas where the soil is acidic.

Here is a link that shows the optimum ph for a few plants.
You will notice just about every one of them like acid better than alkali.
Worth
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j...uZGTz0GrLtz7LA

[b54red]

Thanks for the info on the ph Worth. Very informative and not condescending at all.

Four years ago most of my beds were hovering around a ph of 8 and now most are between 7.3 down to 6.4 so they are improving and so are the taste of my tomatoes. Also I am having less of that iron deficiency that was so devastating a few years back.

Now just give me an easy sure fire way to get rid of spider mites short of burning the plants.

Bill

[Fusion_power]

Not to upstage Worth, but here is an article I keep on my website for obvious reasons.

http://www.selectedplants.com/OrthoPhosphate.htm

[hornstrider]

b54red Now just give me an easy sure fire way to get rid of spider mites short of burning the plants

Kelthane...works like a champ....It's been banned, and it's very, very hard to find. You can still sell it if you have old stock. I found feed store in Schulenberg, Tx that still had ten bottles on the shelf. I purchased all of it. I hope it will last awhile.

[Worth1]

Originally Posted by Fusion_power

Not to upstage Worth, but here is an article I keep on my website for obvious reasons.

http://www.selectedplants.com/OrthoPhosphate.htm

Your knowledge far surpasses mine on these subjects.
Mine is like a bubbling brook compaired to yours being like a rushing river.
Worth

[AlittleSalt]

Worth, and everyone, yes my tomato roots grow just like you wrote about. They grow 4-8 inches deep and the roots spread prolifically. The same goes with our peppers, squash, okra, you name it. I was wondering if the roots growing shallow was due to me and nature not watering slow and deep enough? But the end results are: Plants of all kinds growing really well - so I'm happy.

Our soil around here changes types from sandy loam in one yard to black gumbo next door. Seriously. I bought one of those PH meters just because of all the different looking soil on our 10 acres. Where my house is on the property, the silt/sand can take flooding type rains and the ground stays firm. Yet, in the back pasture, the same amount of rain on the clay means we cannot drive our 4-wheel drive Case/International there for a month.

[amideutch]

Worth, and everyone, yes my tomato roots grow just like you wrote about. They grow 4-8 inches deep and the roots spread prolifically.

Basically, everything the plant/roots need is in that root zone. They have no need to go any deeper. I see it in my containers, raised bed and even when I grew Sungold in the ground next to compost pile.

If you be dry farming or growing in nutrient depleted soil then your root system will get more adventurous as it seeks moisture and nutrients.

Concerning phosphorus which does get locked up in the soil and is unavailable to the plant this is were Mycorrhiza inoculation comes into play and the fungi will make that phosphorus available to the plant once the symbiotic relationship between the fungi and roots is established. And this process will happen even when the soil ph is alkaline.

Ami

[Worth1]

Bump
Worth

[ilex]

I never understand that "tomatoes like ph 6.5", I feel thay are not very picky. I have 8.4-8.5. Very, very few tomatoes complain, and I get very good taste.