converting friends garden as of march 21st/22nd

Hi all,

so a friend and i are complete amateurs at all this still, yet were going to have a pop at turning his back garden over to a bit of veg production, i have some initial questions that i forgot to ask this time last year:

1. SOIL:

should i be testing the soil or something before we put the plants in? what tends to be the procedure for this? is it best to import soil that fits best in terms of its pH with the plants you wish to grow, and buying it from the garden centre?

2. LATE PLANT DATE:

i will only be able to sort this out come march 21st/22nd. in which case, will it be too late to plant certain things?

 

you can buy a soil test kit from your garden centre to find what type of soil you have. It dosnt cost much and is well worth the trouble, coz as you say certain plants thrive better in different soils. 02

 

Worth noted what grows near you too. If there are Rhododendrons, Azaleas and Camelias they you have an Acid / low-PH soil. If not then it is alkaline.

If its Alkaline buying some Acid soil won't solve the problem - unless you make a raised bed and have a barrier with the underlying soil.

To my mind that's an uphill battle and not worth fighting.

But using a test kit to find how acid, or how alkaline, your soil is will be helpful. IMHO those little kits you get from garden centres are very difficult to read - the colours are hard to distinguish, and you'll probably have a fairly muddy sample - which doesn't help of course. Don't let me put you off, but don't expect it to be "just add water" :(

 

I would say that in general most veg like it neutral to slightly alkaline.

That, (more alkaline) is the easiest to achieve, you just add lime.

But having said that, it depends on what you will be growing veg wise.

Dont think I would worry too much on the PH for starters, you wont be able to alter it much this year anyway.