Grow Your Own Magazine

My first full year of growing and having reasonable success with everything except runner beans. I have just taken soil samples from 6 different areas and am getting pH values between high 6's and as high as 8 in 2 areas. Any ideas why so high and recommendations to bring it down?

i got one of those ph readers from wilkies the other day, now either my garden is pure acid or it doesn't work properly. my runner beans haven't happened either.

lots of plants like alkali soils though, especially brassicas ..... apparently.

a ph of 6 or 8 is fine , as neutral is 7, just pick slightly acid liking plants or alkali liking plants in each place.

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I assume that you a familiar with soil ph and plant requirements, with different plants liking different ph's.
If you really feel you need to lower the ph of your soil the fastest acting is probably aluminium sulphate or you could try sulphur, which is more recommended but slower to act.

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Geordie

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Or if you're not in such a hurry then plenty of organic matter will do it over time - I'm sure I read somewhere that soil acidifies over time, just by growing stuff in it and adding organic matter - which is why we generally lime the soil regularly (i.e. before planting brassicas) but rarely have to do anything to lower the pH. I think.

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It sounds to me like the 8ph areas were either recent brassica beds or where there have beeen bonfires (woodash is alkaline)

From memory, generally an ideal soil ph of between 6.5 to 6.8 is ideal, or slightly acidic as yours seems to be.

Can't see the soil ph's quoted being the cause of you having no success with runner beans!

I would just do as someone else has stated and use organic matter which will have a slightly acidifying affect!

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Lots of those cheap soil-testing kits are useless.
Be guided by your plants. If they grow, great. If they don't grow, investigate.

There could be many reasons why your Runners didn't do well. Starting them off too early; slugs& snails; blackfly; drying out; over-watering; too much heat ....

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