Confused about soil PH and structure

Hi all,

I'm working on my new garden - you can see my main thread here: https://permies.com/t/154597/Garden-Scratch-ADVICE

My questions today are about soil. I've started trying to test the soil as I want to prepare for planting a forest-ish garden in the autumn (The 'ish' is because i don't have a big enough garden for a lot of trees). I bought a ph soil testing kit and tested from 6 different places around my garden. One place was ph7, one was about ph7.25 and the other four seemed strongly ph7.5 (but the kit only seems to test up to ph7.5 anyway, so perhaps the soil is more alkaline than that?).

I've also doen the jar test whereby you put some soil in a jar and shake with water and let it settle to get an idea of soild structure. You're supposed to let it settle for 24hrs - it's only been 12 hours so far, but initial results suggest that my soil will definitely be on the clay side.

I'm not really sure why my soil would be alkaline. It sould be underlying rock, but I didn't think there was alkaline rock under my town (I live in Hastings, England) - although there is in other parts of the county. Is it possible that builders have contaminated the soil with cement and building rubble? The soil is quite stoney in some places and I've seen plenty of red brick fragments. One end of my garden also has a fairly new area of cement, so perhaps the remnants was dumped onto the soil when that area was created. One area that I tested was neutral, so is it possible that my soil is naturally closer to that and I just need to use maintenance to bring all of the soil back to that?

I want to grow fruit trees and bushes, would a soil of ph7-7.5 be a big problem, or would a higher level of alkalinity be needed to negatively affect fruit plants? I know that some specied like blueberries are particularly fond of acid soil, but are the others more tolerant?

Finally, I'm a bit confused by my jar test showing a clay soil because when I was digging for soil samples, the soil seemed generally very dry - almost dusty in some parts. I thought a clay soil would be more dense and compacted? Having said that, it has been a unusually dry start to the spring, so maybe it's simply that.

In a nut shell... I'm not sure if I should trust my testing or what I should do next in terms of treating/maintaining the soil. I think the garden has been neglected generally for years before i bought it, so perhaps it just needs some standard TLC to bring it into a condition that most plant species will tolerate, or do you think that I should pay careful attention to the alkalinity readings of my soil testing? I'm less concerned about the soil being clay-based as I think I know how to deal with that.

At the moment, I'm starting to sheet-mulch the grass (which covers the whole garden) with cardboard - I should have the whole garden covered in a couple of weeks. After six months I'm hoping that the soil underneath the cardboard will be more friable and I'll be able to dig the whole garden to ease compaction (after this I will revert to no-till). And then in the autumn I would like to do as much planting as possible.

Lastly, the patch of long grass in the photo is where I hope to put a pond, but I haven't completely made up my mind about the pond location yet.


All advice very welcome!

I don't really trust the pH test kit I bought off Amazon. Gave very dubious results.

I know it seems unscientific, but have a nose at what your neighbours are growing and what is thriving. Or even your weeds. That gives an idea of what the soil is like.

On the UK soil mapping it says Hastings as slightly acidic clayey-loam.

Your pH could be wonky due to things being added. I know some manure gets limed to reduce the smell and it definitely seemed to affect my pH around the veg beds.

Apple's, pears and plums are probably fine. Only issue likely to be blueberries, but they're stupid fussy plants anyway and need careful soil choice, special food and endless watering.

I'm no expert, but I'd say that once you start building soil and adding organic material, your pH is going to lower, so maybe starting with slightly alcaline is good.

Yes, I'm worried about overstating the alkalinity and planting the wrong species. Unfortunately, most of the weeds that grow in the garden aren't reliable indicators of soil PH, although some of them do confirm that I have a heavy-ish clay soil - possibly compacted. The couple of weeds that are slightly helpful in identifying soil PH suggest that the soil is slightly acidic not alkaline (bramble and lesser celandines).

My neighbours aren't gardeners, unfortunately, and have very few plants. I have noticed, however, that dandelions grow much more in my neighbour's garden than in mine, and our lawns are divided only by a fence.

At the moment I'm thinking of going on the assumption that my soil is basically neutral, and slightly acidic once I start looking after it properly, but happy to receive any other suggestions if people have any ideas.

One thing that I forgot to mention is that bluebells started springing up in the lawn recently (spanish bluebells, I think). From what I've read, this also suggests that the soil is somewhere between slightly acidic and slightly alkaline, and fairly fertile.

There are several fruit trees that prefer a higher P.H.  Citrus for one, figs and guava also like more alkaline soil.
 I guess your climate must also dictate what you can grow, you can add sulfur to acidify your soil some. Dr. Redhawk has several articles that imply the trees themselves are able to slowly adjust P.H. to their liking over time.  Perhaps something to read more about in his soil series.  Good luck.

pH doesn't really mean much unless your way over on either end of the scale 7.5 doesn't stop you growing anything really with the exception of rhododendrons/azaleas and blueberries/cranberries. no fruit tree will care. Do not make to much of weeds most weeds will grow anywhere we have masses of lesser celandine and I have pH 8. (30cm topsoil to solid chalk) they will grow on pure chalk as will brambles. Bluebells love chalk downland woods so again not any kind of indicator of pH
With my highly alkaline soil the only thing I find that is annoying is that potatoes are prone to scab, it's hardly a deal breaker.

Ralph Sluder wrote: Dr. Redhawk has several articles that imply the trees themselves are able to slowly adjust P.H. to their liking over time.  Perhaps something to read more about in his soil series.  Good luck.

Ph is something that I'd like to learn more about. I've heard others say that trees and shrubs will fine tune their soil Ph to suit their preferences, so I don't worry much about it. Also, Dan Kittredge explained in one of his videos that Ph varies constantly, so any reading you take is really just a snapshot of a moment in time.  

Thanks for all the feedback! I think I was expecting acidic soil and panicked a bit when I saw that it was neutral/alkaline. I think the soil ph will be fine for what I want to do - I might just avoid very acid-loving plants. It seems like the heavy clay content might be more of a challenge, but hopefully it won't be a problem with the right maintenance, and might be an advantage for fertility.

In the meantime the sheet-mulching continues.

I've never tested soil because plants shift the soil pH to suit their own desired conditions.

You have a highly herbaceous area (green leafy plants) which means there are not many (if any) woody plants growing. Without woody material being made available to the soil life, there is little food for fungi and so the soil under those plants will be highly dominated by bacteria.

Bacteria exude biological gels and glues that are alkaline, and the chances are your high pH readings are reflecting this soil condition. This soil conditions favors the production of nitrates in the soil, which weed type plants flourish in. If you have clay, you probably have some sort of hard layer close to the surface which will benefit weeds because they are shallow rooted fast growing plants.

If you find our plants struggle here and diseases or pests become a problem, then you need shift this soil dynamic by introducing woody organic matter and mycelium. Don't add nitrogen fertilizer because it will just make matters worse. Good luck and have fun!

You may (probably will) find that a lot of people disagree with me, but I never test the soil.  I do the same things everywhere, add organic matter and top off with wood chips.  I'm happy with my results.  I'm not saying mine is the only way, or the right way.  I know people that swear by soil testing.  I'm just not one of them.

I wouldn't even start thinking about pH until year 4.

Right now I would focus more on adding biomass to the soil, aka woodchip, biochar, straw, hay.
Followed by adding comppost/manure/etc
And then inoculants like aerated compost tea, mushroom slurry, etc
I like the idea of a little plastic pond, with a airstone to create aerated water, maybe even aerated compost tea, that you can then just use to spray down or water your garden.

For your food forest you can look into artic kiwi vines(shade), maybe grape vines, akebia vine, maypop passionfruit vine, shrubs like goumi(shade), fig, blueberry, dwarf mulberry, juneberry (shade), dwarf hazelnut(shade), elderberry(shade). I also like currants, gooseberry, jostaberry, asian/hybrid persimmon, sand-cherry, beach-plum. dwarf sweet kernel apricot and pluots are pretty nifty too. Try out an American Pawpaw too if its available.

Dont forget the usual support species (mint/thyme family, onion/garlic family, cilantro/celery/carrot family)

Its easy to over think things regarding ph (blueberries aside), most healthy well fed plants will tolerate a wide range of condiions and be perfectly fine. That said in a past life i was a brickies labourer and at the end of the day the cement mixer was washed out and the water dumped in the garden. This could cause a very alkaline section. work in sulfur chips, pine needles and other organic matter and aim to ammend the ph slowly if you choose.  

Regenerate your soil by using inoculated biochar mixed with mulch and compost.  Watch out for any deworming products in manure (alpacas and llamas usually don't get dewormed, so find a local organic farm and clean all their piles), and started layering your yard with organic matter.  While your soil Ph is important, it won't really matter--now--if you are changing the soil so radically, it won't ever be the same, thank goodness.  After you get your compost going, once the worms aeriated the soil, they'll leave behind their little castings and become your best friends.  You ca also add landscape sand.  You can devise swales, via Hügelkultur build-up, to divert water to where you want it to go.

Here's some links that may make the entire project easier to grasp:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqkWYM7rYpU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCZli7yf_II
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=how+to+charge+biochar+with+molassas