I live in CA, that means I don't have an extension lab. Our soil is horrifying, so everything I grow, and I grow ALOT, is really in built-up beds depending on what I thought it needed and what I had or got at the time, therefore every area could presumably test differently except by coincidence. I have quite a few acid-lovers in heavy peat for contrast to the veggies. Most of the time this "granma's spaghetti sauce" methodology has really worked. Recently I found a few unrelated cranky plantings I really wanted to verify PH on to rule out whether it was likely to be fertilizer damage by operator. Realizing the experienced all say the meters are FOS and not finding any such nasty opinions about non-electronics, I purchased a $6.50 rapitest yesterday. In writing this I recall mine isn't a litmus-paper test which people seem to like but our store didn't have. In my test you put a small jelly-bean size portion of soil in a plastic can, add a tablet add distilled water shake compare results. My results were that three different samples done in increasingly careful adherence to the directions, produced identical browns, none of which were comparable to the orange to green scale. So I tested vinegar to soil level diluted with water to top again brown. I really need a home soil PH tester that actually works - do I just need to find a supplier that has one using litmus paper? Is my tester stale even though it looks new? I feel the size of the sample is a big problem - I can't even spread such a small pile of fluffy dirt out as well as I might need, to remove disguised drainage improvers (I found a piece of that lava-white foamy crap in a sample but if it's too small to see and then becomes a proportionally large contributor to the soil analyzed . . . ). What DIY testers work for folks? Thanks