Trying to find Garden Lime and Epsom Salt

[M Farooq]

When I want raise the PH of my potting or soil mix I add a mixture of washed beach sand, composted sea weed and wood ash.

The sand contains silica, seashell calcium etc.
The wood ash has a naturally high PH range.
The sea weed provides natural growth hormones like the Gibberellins and its PH drifts upwards.
Crushed Eggshells added to compost provides a calcium additive and also increases the composts PH range.

Please let us know how you get on

Ifzal sb (Newton), that is a wonderful suggestion! Woodash and eggshells, what a good suggestion: Wood ash is mainly potassium carbonate and egg-shell is 99% pure calcium carbonate :-). Both are perfect for neutralizing acidity.
If the original poster is looking for organic solutions, then nothing can be more organic than above.

To redeye: Why are you worried about soil acidity? Have you measured the actual pH of your soil?

[RedEyeJedi]

Hey Newton. Wood ash it turns out is all kinds of awesome. Skimmed through these pages to get the lowdown after you posted it here and it turns out it does a lot more than raising PH:

"Wood ash also contains many of the nutrients originally absorbed from the soil by tree growth, so it may improve crop growth through improved nutrition. By comparison, agricultural lime contains only minimal amounts of plant nutrients. A significant amount of phosphorus, calcium, magnesium and potassium (potash) is added to the soil when wood ash is used as a liming material."
http://www1.agric.gov.ab.ca/$department ... /agdex3435

More here:
http://www.tbars.net/lime.pdf

Comes with a word of caution though; Unlike garden/dolomite lime, which raises and balances off the PH somewhere near 7, too much wood-ash can throw your PH completely off by raising it much more than 7.... can even go up to 9.

M. Farooq, I'm using peat for my potting mixes. The one I'm getting is treated with a liming agent but that would eventually run out. Sphagnum peat is acidic with a PH of around 4.

[RedEyeJedi]

When I want raise the PH of my potting or soil mix I add a mixture of washed beach sand, composted sea weed and wood ash.

The sand contains silica, seashell calcium etc.
The wood ash has a naturally high PH range.
The sea weed provides natural growth hormones like the Gibberellins and its PH drifts upwards.
Crushed Eggshells added to compost provides a calcium additive and also increases the composts PH range.

Please let us know how you get on

I have liquid seaweed which should do the job.. Getting my own kelp from the sea, drying and making a meal would be too much of a work-load for me right now.
Also have some Azomite on hand that should be enough for any silica requirements.
Oh well... i'll see how it goes. Earth Worm Castings should might just balance out the PH for me (or so I've read) when the peat's pre inoculated lime runs out.

On to the next step of mixing everything up, now that i have all i need. Thanks again for the great suggestions.

[M Farooq]

Redeye-Have you actually _measured_ the pH of your peat moss? Don't rely on the internet pages too much. I think nothing can be better and more organic than wood ash (quick action) and egg shell (slow action). The only problem is how to get so many egg-shells.

You are right that the professional solution is liming with calcium carbonate.

[RedEyeJedi]

I haven't measured it myself, but the website for the specific product says their brand of 'pure Sphagnum peat' PH is 4.

[Khirmun]

You can find samundari jhaag which is argonite in jodia bazaar. Will serve the same purpose and keep your soils pH up.

[Alam64]

Talking about PH what is the base number that we should target for. Would it be same for all plants, somewhere i heard that some plants need more acidic soil some less. Where can i get this info

[Izhar]

most plants grow well between pH 5.5-6.5

[Alam64]

Izhar sb
Thanks

[Alam64]

I have china palm, draceana, money plant, monstera, petunia, pansy, syngonium in my garden. All of these have ph of 7 and the lawn also has ph of 7. Planning to water using baking soda to reduce the acidity. Advise if correct