Had a talk with my neighbor about soil pH last Tuesday

He told me most people overcomplicate it and just adding coffee grounds to the dirt is way better than buying those expensive test kits, and honestly after seeing his tomatoes vs mine I gotta say he might be right.

3 comments

3 Comments

brooket431d agoTop Commenter

Are you sure throwing coffee grounds in there isn't just making the soil more acidic without actually knowing what you're starting with? Tomatoes grow great in a bunch of different conditions so one good season doesn't really mean anything.

robert_ross951d ago

Yeah but actually coffee grounds aren't really that acidic once they've been used. Fresh grounds are pretty acidic but after brewing they're closer to neutral, like around 6.5 to 6.8 pH. I made that mistake myself a few years back, threw a bunch of used grounds on my blueberries thinking I was helping them out and they didn't do much at all. If you really want to lower pH you'd need something like peat moss or sulfur, which takes a while but actually works. Your neighbor might just have better soil to start with or he's watering differently. Tomatoes are forgiving plants, they'll grow in a lot of conditions if you keep them watered and fed.

harperp241d ago

So wait, we're all just throwing random stuff on our plants and hoping for the best? I feel you @brooket43, I've definitely been that person thinking I was a garden genius when really it was just dumb luck. My tomatoes did great one year after dumping eggshells everywhere, but turns out it was probably just the weather. It's easy to give advice when things work out for you once.