What is the soil in the garden like?
We had the soil analyzed by Rutgers Cooperative Extension labs in late 2008. You can view the results for yourself here. (If you want to get into the nitty gritty of how to understand the report, click here . If this made your eyes glaze over, don’t worry about it. All you really ought to focus on is the soil pH … and a lot of gardeners don’t even do that… and they do just fine anyway.) As you can see, it is a very rich, acidic soil. For most plots, adding limestone to the soil will adjust the pH to what your plants will want. To get a good sense of what exactly different pH values are, lemon juice (strongly acidic) has a pH of 2.0, orange juice is 4.0, and ammonia (strongly alkaline) is 11.5. The average soil in our garden has a pH of 5.5 which is moderately acidic. You will want to grow those plants that all want a similar type of soil. If you plant an acidic loving plant next to one that wants a significantly different soil, one of them will not be happy. If this confuses you, d
