Real World Gardener Podcasts

PLANT DEFICIENCIES: Imagine this scenario, you’ve fertilised your garden with all the right stuff, having followed the manufacturer’s instructions to a ‘t.’ But still the plants look sickly, or perhaps a bit yellow, or they’re just not putting on any growth. Does that sound familiar? So what’s the problem? The first thing you need to do is a pH test on your soil-there's no escaping it. Why? The soil pH will determine the availability pf different nutrients to your plants.   Let's look at an example Looking at the chart on the right, it's immediately apparent that if your pH is higher than say pH7.5, then nutrients like iron start to taper off in their availability to the plant.   Then means your plant may start to show symptoms of iron deficiency. In fact, after pH 7.5, other nutrients taper off in their availability, such as manganese, boron, and more importantly, one of the macro nutrients being potassium.     Basic pH test kit   Ideally the ideal pH range that gardeners should strive for is pH 6