Comments on: Soil Tests

By: Soil Test | Bifurcated Carrots

Soil Test | Bifurcated Carrots — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 10:50:18 +0000

[...] You can compare this to my earlier do-it-yourself efforts at soil testing. [...]

By: ajpong

ajpong — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 08:51:34 +0000

where are you buy? let me know and how much is it? pls send to my email.

By: Ashraf Al Shafaki

Ashraf Al Shafaki — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 08:54:45 +0000

Amazing post! I love this. I like the way you explain things in a clear way. You make an excellent instructor and trainer.

Thanks for the informative post. Perhaps one day I should go about playing with a soil test kit.

By: Five Liters of Fish | Bifurcated Carrots

Five Liters of Fish | Bifurcated Carrots — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 20:15:57 +0000

[...] the last few weeks I’ve been using fish mix in my garden, because I did a soil test a few months ago that showed my soil was low on nitrogen and I noticed several plants were showing signs of nitrogen [...]

By: The Difference Beans Make | Bifurcated Carrots

The Difference Beans Make | Bifurcated Carrots — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 15:20:20 +0000

[...] I posted before about the ground test I did, which showed my nitrogen levels were ‘medium-low to low’, at least in the one spot I did the test. It’s really becoming obvious just how low the overall nitrogen in my garden really is. I did the soil test first, then added compost, so I assumed that would help a little bit. I’ve also planted beans in several places. [...]

By: Patrick

Patrick — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 15:08:10 +0000

Hi Cyndy,

I did a post on this a few months ago, as did Søren:

http://www.patnsteph.net/weblog/?p=280

I think if you are ‘reading your weeds’, there’s probably not much point in doing a soil test.

By: cyndy

cyndy — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 13:34:46 +0000

Oh I have always wanted to try those soil test kits! They seem very accurate and organized.

I wind up watching the weeds as soil indicators (certain species of weed grow in certain soil types)…

then, I plant accordingly…(certain plants like or dislike certain soil types)..

…in otherwords, sometimes the weeds can tell me what is right or wrong with the soil.

By: Sue

Sue — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 13:50:40 +0000

Hi Patrick,
There’s an award waiting for you on y blog to say thanks for all the useful info. you provide.
Sue

By: Patrick

Patrick — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 09:40:19 +0000

Doviende: Good luck with the new garden! Let us know how it goes.

Testing for toxic materials is really important, especially when you live in a city. In my case, because my community garden is city owned and funded, I’m pretty sure they already did this testing.

By: doviende

doviende — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 17:37:21 +0000

ooo, thanks for the post. i was just searching for soil tests like 15 minutes ago, so this is timely.

I’m particularly curious about testing for pollutants or metals. That’s probably the advantage of the expensive lab test. I just moved into a new place with some pre-existing garden area and some areas we’d like to turn into gardening space, but it’d be nice to do tests for pH and N like you did, and also for pollutants and heavy metals just in case. I’ll probably just look up a local lab that does residential soil fertility analysis.

By: Patrick

Patrick — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 12:37:40 +0000

vegmonkey: I use to have one of those too. I don’t know what happened to it. Yes it was nice, but but a testing kit with just a few chemical tests is much cheaper, and you don’t have the problem with breaking or mislaying it! The electronic tests also don’t work well if the ground is dry.

By: Patrick

Patrick — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 11:25:24 +0000

kate (Kate’s Smudges): I don’t think there’s anything wrong with figuring it out by trying. In some earlier posts I’ve made a little fun of soil tests, because if you are an organic gardener there’s only ever one outcome, add more compost. Compost will fix almost any soil imbalance, and if you use a lot of compost anyway, there’s not really much point in doing a soil test. I’m doing a soil test mostly because if something is wrong I want to know about it.

Kate (Hills and Plains): Your climate sounds a lot like where I lived many years ago in northern California. What I would give for a dry season! It rains so much here.

Frank: Thanks for taking the time to leave a comment! It’s not necessary to be ‘right’, whatever that means.

By: vegmonkey

vegmonkey — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 11:20:12 +0000

Nice post – i use a ph meter to tell me the ph of the soil, it’s electronic and very accurate. This way i can take various readings in different parts of the garden and compare them. It’s also a lot less messy. I think i will buy one of the tests u used though, i like the idea of being able to measure the npk level. Bit late this year to do much about it though!

By: Frank

Frank — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 06:30:49 +0000

Well, I definitely got it completely wrong there, that’s what happens if I read something, read other things afterwards and returns to the first subject without re-reading it and just take a look at the pictures…

By: Kate

Kate — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 22:33:57 +0000

The problem for us, with rainfall, is that it all falls in the cool months with barely anything from Dec – March, when it is so hot. So when we have water restrictions they hit very hard during the hottest, driest, sunniest part of the year. Our humidity in summer is often almost zero and this sucks the life out of the plants too!!(But it means eveporative air conditioning works like dream. And solar hot water reaches nearly boiling point.)