Soil pH Tester, Acidity Test Meter, Strips Kit 200 Tests, for Garden Home Lawn Farm Vegetable Yard Compost Outdoor and Indoor Plants, 4.5-9.0 Range

Saw a lot of mixed reviews but took a chance on this kit.The reality is that you are trying to measure something quite sensitive and this is science not a cooking recipe.If you take care with the preparation it works fine so for me I got accurate results thus good value.The kit contains everything you need so easy to use.

This is a fairly cheap bit of kit. The price isn’t showing as I write this review so I can’t comment on the actual price, but by ‘cheap’ I mean it’s thin plastic tubes, and some fairly weak chemicals. However since it probably only has to do the job a handful of times, it’s adequate for the task.You do need to use distilled water to get accurate results from this test, but distilled water doesn’t necessarily need to be bought- you can distill water at home, there are plenty of tutorials online. That’s what we did, and it’s not especially complex, though it could be seen as a bit of a faff if you just want to get instant results from the kit. It did give us the added bonus of giving our kids a quick chemistry lesson though.The colour isn’t the boldest, but it is at least fairly distinct. The results we got were consistent with what we expected. Our soil is quite clay heavy, and sure enough, we got alkaline pH values, confirming what we thought we already knew. Our garden isn’t especially big, but testing bits of soil from opposite ends of the garden gave fairly consistent results. I don’t think I’d trust the precision of this set for pH values with any decimal places on them, but as a broad measurement to confirm your soil is alkaline and around a 9, I think it’s accurate enough.It might have a bit of a feel of a kids “my first science experiment kit” in the quality, but for a simple bit of investigation when you’ve got a new garden to work with, I do think this does the job.

Works as expected and good value comes with everything you need other than the distilled water 😂

I’ll keep this one short. I like the kit in theory but firstly it states that distilled water is required to get accurate readings. Whilst I understand the reason for this, it is not stated so a bit misleading. Not everyone has distilled water and yes I know you can make your own.Secondly, the PH shades in the 4.5 to 6.75 range are all very similar. When I tested my soil I found myself changing my mind so many times “it’s 6.0, no it’s 5.75, no it’s 6.25… grrr”You get 200 tests and everything you need (apart from distilled water), but it’s no good if you can’t easily see the correct PH.

Fiddly but gave good feedback on soil

At last! This test kit works, as opposed to an earlier tried zinc-aluminium single rod electronic tester and a generic litmus paper. The kit includes accessories allowing to collect up to 3 samples of soil, and then complete testing in the comfort of your home or shed. The test requires some deionised, distilled, rain, or at worst bottled water. If the sample is too muddy, it could be difficult to read the colour. I this case use a coffee paper filter or paper towel to filter out the sediment. There is no data stamp on the indicator containers, but they are properly sealed. If one would last a couple of months, the next might survive until the next season.

The pH strips used in this test kit do not change colour and do not give any indication of pH when used to test soil pH. A quick test of water from the tap should give a pH of 7 but once again no colour change was noted even when leaving the test strips for some time to develop. The kit is well put together and the instructions are clear, it just the test strips that let it down. Unfortunately this is the most important bit!

I needed to test my soil again. I tested it when we first moved in and found it to be about 4.5 on the pH scale which is very acidic.I grow most things in baskets or troughs using bought compost but my blueberry bushes at the back of the chicken coop haven't done as well as I would like in the last year or so. I wondered if the soil had changed.I took three samples of soilOne from behind the coop, this used to be the chicken run.One from behind the greenhouse where a huge Christmas tree had recently been cut down.One from the front part of the garden in front of the greenhouse.You need to put the soil up to the 20ml Mark and then fill with distilled water up to the 40ml Mark and shake for 30 seconds and leave them for half to one hour to settle.Then you get some of the liquid and put drops into the two colours on the sticks, I used two sticks for each sample.It was simple to do and the results fairly easy to judge.Apparently I still have acid soil5 behind the coop4.5 behind the greenhouse5.75 in front of the greenhouse.The leaflet explains how to test and is easy to follow but the list of plants that do well in each type of soil are mostly irrelevant, don't think I'll be growing pineapples, pecans or tamarind anytime soon.Please note. Distilled water has to be used with this kit.