Excellent... thank you, SO. I think chemistry was my worst subject in high school, so having you summarize that simply and plainly is much appreciated! No danger of getting our soils anywhere near 6, eh? lol We must have excellent buffering qualities (hope I'm using that term correctly), though, because the efforts to lower pH here seem to be sticking better than areas such as daninthedirt is speaking of (great username, by the way, Dan). I also have a rather easy time lowering water pH for our aquarium fish; half distilled and half dechlorinated tap water keeps it in a comfortable range for them without having to purchase adjusting chemicals. (We're now on the river water pipeline that goes into town; well water was much, much worse and I could only use a small amount mixed with the distilled.) We're rural in the Humboldt area, but we have family who is mixed farming the Young/Allan area. :) Prairie Garden Seeds is in Humboldt here and I met Jim and his family briefly when I picked up a seed order last year. Nice folks. I should ask for a tour of the seed gardens someday. One more question. Our garden has flooded before. How long does it take for the iron to then get back to an unavailable state after such an incident? So as not to hijack crabbygardener's thread any further (sorry about that), I'm going to spin off with a new post over in the soil forum regarding my question about zinc and copper. This post was edited by macky77 on Sun, Mar 16, 14 at 11:29

If you're going to proceed without a good soil test (and sadly, the home kits don't really count), you should do your homework. I understand your desire to save some money! What do your neighbors say that their soil always needs? What is the conventional wisdom in your area? Where I live, for instance, the soil tends to be generally pretty good, but somewhat on the acidic side. Conventional wisdom (and my grandmother, and all of the other gardeners in the area) say that adding lime will be necessary where I live. In fact, when I don't do this, I get Blossom End Rot (a sign of calcium deficiency) on my tomatoes and peppers, and when I add some lime, it goes away. Does the conventional wisdom of your area say that the soil is always alkaline, and you'll need to lower the pH? If so, products to help you to do this will be available in your area, certainly at a garden store, and quite likely at the "big box" stores like Home Depot (though I might have a bit of trouble finding that stuff where I live, since we have the opposite problem here). If pH-lowering supplies aren't readily available in the local garden stores, I'd have additional doubts about what your home soil test told you. Adding organic matter is always a good step, even without a soil test. As people have said, lots of good organic matter will bring your soil back towards neutral, regardless of where is started, and it will also add lots of the nutrients your plants need to be happy and healthy. I believe it is possible to garden (and even to garden well) without a soil test, but you need to keep on your toes. People gardened for a good long time without access to soil tests, but the other side of that is that the successful folks knew how to read their soil and their plants to detect deficiencies.

Berndoodle, *** I assume you've dug down 6 or 8 inches in the soil about a foot out from these roses and tested the dampness of the soil? I will dig down and check for dampness. All the roses get the same watering (more this year than last) and lots more rain this summer than last. *** What else do you know about your soils? Compacted? Organic matter content? Organic matter in the soil acts as a warehouse for nutrients and moisture. Organic mulch... The original ground is mostly very compacted gray sandy stuff with limestone rocks and strands and chunks of white clay. I dug down to about 15", removed half of it and all the rocks and 90% of the clay, replaced it with bagged topsoil & composted cow manure, pine fines & composted horse manure. In May I mulched with newspaper (long gone), CHM and pine straw. When I removed Duchesse de Brabant, I was amazed by the thick roots that went pretty much straight down. A couple of them were 2.5 feet longer where they broke, so they're going down into native ground which is yucky. And who knows what THAT pH is! My amended soil was in the range of 6.8 to 7.0, but I haven't checked it recently. All the roses get the same treatment, but some are reacting differently. Last year in his first summer Mons Tillier was well foliated and wonderful. This year he's huge (6+ x 6) but almost no leaves inspite of more water and MiracleGro in August, September & early October. (Thanks for the suggestion, Taoseeker.) His roots have to be deep down is the crummy stuff by now. On the other hand LeVesuve is in a bed that probably didn't get as much good stuff to balance the awful native stuff as MT did, and it's lush and blooming big (but no where near as tall as MT since he was moved this March.) Anna Olivier is located in or very near the road bed (really crappy stuff almost like hardpan) prepared the same way but she's beautiful and lush. Saldut, my azaleas grow better in builder's sand than the native soil, but all the builder's sand is gone. Ann, if it were just water that would be an answer anyway. The last several days I've been watering daily by hand but not heavy with the hose. It's been very dry since summer ended 10 days ago, plus some areas need more mulch. When I check them down at 6" or 8" depth, I'll know if I'm watering enough. Old Blush is surviving but that's about it. She's looks like she should be living in an abandoned cemetery. Even though my pH near the surface isn't real high (high enough that multiflora-blooded roses don't like it), these roses are supposed to like pH around 6.5 or less, right? So I was wondering if they really hate putting their roots down in the deadzone below. My theory is that for the first year they're loving my amended soil; then after that they're suffering in the native stuff. Sherry

gardengal, I've heard the same. Asked our ag extension about why the soils around here need repeated liming from time to time out here and he said in some regions the soil is just naturally lower in pH and tends to revert to its native condition. Fortunately most of my land will be used for pasture and bermuda is fine with a fairly low pH. My CEC is quite high actually, which, with regard to liming, means I can lime less often and in larger amounts than if I had a sandier soil with pH problems. But feel free to say more about buffering, as I'm still learning what this means for the liming process. Feel free to say more about anything. :) I was quite low in calcium, not surprisingly, a little low in potassium and phosphorus. To answer your direct question I've gotten two different reports on pH. First report, through Logan Labs, was 5.3. It was of samples taken over a wide variety of the pasture (40 acres). The other was about 6.0, from OSU, but it was taken solely from the previous garden area, which had been heavily amended. I'm going to establish a new garden area. Two actually, and rotate them in and out of business. I'll be growing the usual things for OK and Texas (I'm near the border) when you get decent rainfall: southern peas, okra, squash, tomatoes, beans, but also potatoes, onions, and various leafy vegetables such as chard, kale and spinach.