How to Test Your Garden Soil Nutrients
Have you thought of the ideal way of testing your garden soil nutrient? Today, most homeowners use the TDS meter to get the pH and nutrients of their soil nutrients.
Testing the garden soil and nutrients daily should be taken seriously while growing plants. Plants being generally resilient, can develop issues when you don’t take care of some aspects of their nutrition.
Why do you need to test your garden soil?
To grow healthy plants, you need to work hard in testing your pH, TDS, or EC. When you grow in soil, you have to pay more attention to moisture. On the contrary, if you are growing hydroponically, you need to concentrate on the temperature.
The Importance of pH
Plant health and pH have a direct relationship. The plant suffers when the nutrient solution or pH of your soil is too low or too high. Plants have a sweet spot when it comes to pH. The soil pH should be between 5.5 and 6.5. When growing hydroponically, the pH level should be between 5.5 and 6.0.
The nutrient uptake problem is the significant risk you will face if your pH is not up to the expected range. The pH issues are mostly caused by nutrient deficiencies in your plants. And when you don’t balance the pH, the plant will start growing small and start looking sickly.
Garden Soil Testing
To be a successful cultivator, you need to test your garden soil. It is essential to grow organically. A home testing kit is one of the ways you can easily carry out garden soil testing. Add your soil to the tester to find out the two essential things you need to know about your soil.
Soil pH
A Blue lab soil pen is needed if you want to measure the temperature and pH of your soil for easy adjustment. Moisture content is another essential measurement when reusing soil or making yours. You don’t need dry soil or soaking wet soil.
The moisture meter and active airway pH are excellent ways to test the two vital controls in your grow pH and moisture. The pH varies in some hotter soils; try flushing to see if it can fix it. If not, you may need a powdered dolomite line to stabilize the pH.
Nutrient Solution Testing
Whether you are growing hydroponically or in the soil, there is a need to test the nutrient solution before feeding. More importantly, the hydro system has less room for a mistake without the growth medium to act as a buffet.
Conclusion
Whether you prepare your garden for winter or you plant new seeds for summer, TDS and pH are the two major tests you need to do when feeding your soil. Pay attention to the temperature because you can damage your plants if the water is too cold.
Furthermore, the plant’s growth will be slow if the water is too hot. You will end up developing mold or mildew in your reservoir for hydro grows.
There will be a need for hydroponic water chilled or a heater, depending on your temperature issues. Finally, nutrient solution pH is easier to test than soil pH.