Thanks to everyone for the interesting responses. dirtydan, have you had a soil test done to determine why your pH is so high? Unfortunately there is no one in this area that will do a soil test for less than $70 per sample. I recently found a link to University of Mass Amherst that offers soil tests for $13 so I am planning to send them some samples. http://www.umass.edu/plsoils/soiltest/soilbrochure2009.pdf I use home test kits for nutrient and pH. I also have a Hanna pH meter that comes in handy for quick tests. I don't know my native soil composition. Its pretty bad though. It could be described as dense gray clay with some occasional small pockets of white material. When dry, its is normally cracked and coated with a layer of frosty looking crystals that taste like salt. The salty crystals grow up the side of masonry, concrete and stucco walls. When wet, it turns to a slippery slime that will coat the bottom of your boots with a couple pounds of thick clay. It has no vegetative matter whatsoever. I have been prepping my raised beds with compost, sand, clay, fertilizer and various sulfur products to lower pH. Where are you in the Mojave? I am located in the city of Lancaster, CA. This is the high desert north of Los Angeles at about 2,400 ft elevation. We only get about 5 inches of rain per year, most of it is in February. In fact we will probably not see any significant rain here until next fall or winter. The arid conditions are one of the reasons for the high soil pH and lack of organic mater, also the fact that we are almost entirely dependent on alkaline municipal water for irrigation. What are you trying to grow that is having trouble? When I first moved here I put tomatoes, squash, cucumber, melon, and several others in the unamended native soil. They were all killed or stunted from the salt or nutrient deficiencies. Iron chlorosis and micronutrient deficiencies were evident in the plants that didn't die immediately. The only exception were some tomatoes that I managed to save by side dressing with aluminum sulfate and a highly acidified nutrient solution, they remained quite stunted however and suffered from BER. Since I have built raised beds and worked the soil, I have a productive garden and only seem to have problems with cucurbits in beds that have been freshly sulfured, and typical aphid and leaf miner infestations. There are two main reasons as to why sulfur is the preferred material for acidifying soil. 1. Economics Sulfur is one of the most plentiful and inexpensive elements on earth, said to comprise 2% of the mass of the earth. Sulfur is a byproduct of oil and gas refining and there is a massive oversupply of the material, especially in Canada where its is extracted from oil sands during refining. High concentrations are not toxic to vegetables. Cucurbits being the exception. Avoid sulfur contact with the leaf surface of cucurbits. Other possible acidifying agents (some impractical): ammonium nitrate liquid nitrogen urea diammonium phosphate acetic acid hydrochloric acid HCl (also called muriatic acid) phosphoric acid Elemental sulfur has been used for centuries as a fungicide and miticide. I don't know if, or to what extent, it affects beneficial soil fungi. I suppose that a reduction in soil fungi is OK as long as our vegetables are not negatively impacted, and there is no damage to the environment. Once the sulfur it oxidized by soil bacteria I would speculate that soil fungi will return to pre-application population size.

What is the current pH of your soil? Clay holds a lot of moisture, I cannot see why coir would make it worse.

ditto on the grounds. i can get like 20lb a week from Starbucks here in Kenner its too cold to compost, so i cant use all i have now suggested reading... diatomaceous earth is cheap, and helps keeps bugs down. also adds minerals mycorrhizal fungi seems to have helped me condition my soil, Rock dust , could help as well most of those dont affect the PH a lot, but some dust might at higher levels This post was edited by greenman62 on Mon, Feb 3, 14 at 11:41

Great, thanks guys! I think I should be safe putting it a short distance from the other bed, then, with a walkway in between.