Spent $75 on a soil test kit and it showed me my whole garden plan was wrong

I was trying to grow blueberries in my backyard for two seasons and they kept dying. I just assumed I was bad at watering. Finally, after wasting money on more plants, I bought a proper soil test kit online. The results came back and my soil pH was way too high, like 7.5. Blueberries need super acidic soil. I had been fighting the wrong problem the whole time. Now I'm amending the soil with sulfur, but it's a slow process. It felt like such a basic thing to miss. Has anyone else had a plant fail because of something simple you didn't check first?

3 comments

3 Comments

taragrant3mo ago

Fighting the wrong problem" is just part of gardening. I've had stuff die from way dumber oversights, like not checking for proper drainage at all. That $75 test probably saved you way more in dead plants long term.

cameron3183mo ago

Seventy-five dollars for a soil test? That's more than I spent on all my plants last year!

lee_ward5427d agoProlific Poster

You ever spend good money trying to fix the wrong thing? I once dumped a ton of compost into my veggie patch thinking it just needed more nutrients. Turns out the pH was so far off nothing could absorb them anyway. Took me two seasons of wilting tomatoes and sad basil before I finally broke down and tested. Thirty bucks at the local extension office, and I felt like a fool for not doing it sooner. So yeah, seventy-five seems steep, but compared to what you lose guessing, it might be worth it.