by Perry McCarney

Created on: August 03, 2010   Last Updated: November 25, 2011

With the vast majority of people in today's world living in cities, most of us do not have much agricultural experience. Our foods tend to come from supermarket shelves rather than our back gardens. With both environmental concerns and worry about the quality of foods sold to us, particularly those produced by industrial farming or genetically engineered, more and more of us are considering growing our own. Some of us with little knowledge of the realities of gardening and the work involved in growing healthy, beneficial foods may have a rather simplistic perception of what is required.

They may believe that all they need do is simply plant the seed and watch it grow and develop into the plant desired. While this can sometimes occur when we are growing plants that are endemic (native) to our locality, it is in no way assured even then. And if we are attempting to grow exotics, non-native to our region, it is an almost certain formula for failure.

To be a successful gardener we need a large amount of knowledge, either experiential we have developed personally over time or learned from the experiences of others and/or been taught through local gardening classes. Very few gardeners can produce vegetative wonders based purely on luck! 

Plants flourish best when they grow in conditions that are optimal for their success. Sunshine hours, local climatic conditions and the mineral content of their soil are three of the most important factors. Another is the pH of the soil they are planted in, the acidity or alkalinity of that growing medium.

The pH (potential of hydrogen) scale is used in chemistry and biochemistry to measure acidity through to alkalinity, from 0 to 14. Neutral on this scale is at 7, the more below 7 the more acidic the soil, the higher above 7 the more alkaline it is. While the scale is called pH, based on the the variance between H+ and OH- ions in a liquid solution, it is not limited to those. All acids and alkalines, sometimes called base compounds, are measured using this scale, whether their acidity or alkalinity is related to hydrogen or not.

Soil that is strongly acidic or alkaline is unlikely to produce high quality yields of any plant. However, most plants have evolved to favor differing levels of acidity or alkalinity ranging around the neutral 7. The pH in our garden plot can vary from area to area, especially if our garden is fairly extensive. This can be very useful; by taking pH measurements of the soil and plotting them on a plan

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>