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Soil test

Busy Bee2Busy Bee2 Posts: 1,005
in Talkback

After promising myself for ages that I would get around to doing a soil test, I finally bought a testing kit today.  I did as it said on the packet exactly, used spring water, put it to one side, left it for about half an hour to an hour, and got the following result.  It didn't look to me like any of the colours displayed on the package - more like a cup of instant coffee.  Shall I just wait longer?  The capsule didn't totally dissolve - it looked sort of like a bit of green squidged up plastic in the bottom of the test tube. 

image

 

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Posts

  • FairygirlFairygirl Posts: 55,109

    Looks like it's heading for the acid end of the scale BBee, but perhaps wait a bit longer to see if it develops a bit more. Never used one of those myself but I'm sure someone here will have and will know. image

    Wouldn't try drinking it - unless you have a large cake to go with it... image

    It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....



    I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
  • Busy Bee2Busy Bee2 Posts: 1,005

    Fairy I know what you mean about acid.  At our last house though, it was alkaline, although that was about 15 - 20 miles from here.  But I thought that because our house is built on sandstone/limestone, we would be alkaline.  Also, tbh, you don't see many acid loving plants round here.  Cake can put right a lot of the world's ills, but even cake wouldn't make it worthwhile drinking soil and water!!

    Yes there's a sort of pinkish bloom at the top though!

  • gab82gab82 Posts: 73
    You need to keep shaking it the capsule will disolve. Does take a while
  • Busy Bee2Busy Bee2 Posts: 1,005

    Thanks Gab - that's what I did, so I will look again tomorrow and keep going.  There isn't a 'reading window' is there? 

  • gab82gab82 Posts: 73
    I used them to test my soil. Came as a pack of two. Took ages for the capsule to leak open. Ended up doing both of them. Does work just takes a while. I sat in front of the telly shaking them....while getting funny looks from the wife!
  • Busy Bee2Busy Bee2 Posts: 1,005

    I have left mine in the greenhouse, and I will do the hippy shake tomorrow, again!  Wouldn't it be easier to just break the capsule open?

  • Jack 3Jack 3 Posts: 360

    I had a similar test recently, but you had to break the capsule and pour the powder in then add the soil, then the rainwater, I shook it and it worked in about thirty seconds.

  • Busy Bee2Busy Bee2 Posts: 1,005

    Jack if I don't get a colour by tomorrow morning, I think I will do that with the second test in the pack.  I can't understand why the capsule had to dissolve. 

  • Jack 3Jack 3 Posts: 360

    No I can't understand that either. The one I had said to pull the capsule in half and pour contents into test chamber. I just thought I'd let you know because it seems to me that if mine worked that quickly and I did three separate tests of different areas of garden, then it seems maybe there's something wrong as I can't imagine it should take longer than a minute or something.

  • DorsetUKDorsetUK Posts: 441

    Your limestone will definitely be alkaline but the sandstone might not be so perhaps the capsule is confused :)

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