Danny, yeah I don’t see why not, as long as it’s not overdone and the ph is adjusted.
I think the manure one should really use is moose poop, but it’s hard to find around here in California…
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I would recommend not eyeballing sulfur because usually only a very small amount is needed, so it’s easy to overdo it. This is a general guide you can use:
To lower pH by 1 point per cubic foot:
- Sandy soil: ~1 tablespoon (15 grams)
- Loamy soil: ~2 tablespoons (30 grams)
- Clay soil: ~3 tablespoons (45 grams)
Alternatively if you know your starting pH, you can also use this calculator to figure out around how much to use. They do give it in pounds per 10 square feet, so you would indeed need to translate that. I find it easiest to convert pounds to grams because then you can use a teaspoon (5g) or tablespoon (15g) to measure it out.
Sulfur takes months to fully work but it is the best longterm solution to lowering soil pH.
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Awesome info Daniel! Thank you. Yeah, all the nursery had was a 30lb bag of it. I have enough for myself and my neighbors for several generations to come.
Spilled some of it in my gravel driveway while pouring the powder into a bucket and there was a bit of wind. Now my place smells like the upper levels of hell or a vineyard. Whew.
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I got some PH test strips for cheap off the web. I don’t see my brand for sale anymore, but Walmart sells 100 for a little over $6.00.
They are meant for use by human beings, but If you let the strip stay in the drink for 30 seconds instead of 15 seconds or whatever, you compensate for the fact that you are testing at a lower temp than the strip was designed for.
Mix a representative sample in a receptacle, add Distilled water (very important that,) to make a slurry wait a few minutes for the chemistry to settle down and insert the strip.
I used to filter the solution before testing, but now I don’t bother; I can usually read the strip through the crumbs of dirt.
Wood chips from your local transfer station broken down with urea is plenty acidic.
My experience is that PH is a moving target, especially early in the process. It’s really easy to overshoot or undershoot the goal PH. Much easier to just nudge it in one direction or another.
Given time constraints—-you have to plant those guys right now—-I would bite the bullet, buy a big bag of peat moss and amend the normal planting mix as needed to get it down to an acceptable PH, as measured by your Walmart PH strips.
I suspect that what the earlier poster said is true. The PH of the irrigation water is influential in blueberry production. If you don’t have sufficient relatively low-PH rainfall, it may be a problem regardless of the PH of the soil.
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Thanks. I need to find my ph meter… I have 2 cu yards of pure Canadian peat. At 3.5 to 4 ph I have some buffer for cal-phosphate and manure. Just not sure how much. Will need the meter.
Be careful of the cheapie PH meters. They are worthless in my experience/opinion. Spring for the inconvenience and minor expense of the test strips.
A real PH meter is probably overkill for your purposes, especially with the tariffs.
Hi Daniel, I found this; Lower soil pH with sulfur - Grow Abundant Gardens and after reading through it I’m going to guess I’ll need a 1/2 to 1 teaspoon (5 grams) per 45 gal container to lower it by 1/2 a degree. If any at all… This is working off the assumption of the peat as around 4 PH and the manure at 10 ph and the calphos at basically zero. Evidently the calphos will only increase ph to any great extent when the soil is 4 ph or below. UNLESS the caqlphos is carbonated- which I’ll have to double check with the company- but I don’t think it is.
Bottom line though is yes, I need to find my ph meter and get new batteries for it. Yes indeed, the margins are slim.