Topic: soil pH and cabbages

[legless]

my neighbour is giving me some cabbages to put in and he told me to lime the soil, i checked the pH and its 7.5 do i really need to lime it or will that be ok?

cheers

Jo

p.s. off to meet cerig down my allotment now, hope she's not an axe murderer!  ;) i'll be there til 12 Ceri!

[Ceri]

morning Legless - I'll see you later.  Will have 3 yr old with me as husband working this morning - if there is anything to break.......!  I bought one of those ph meter thingies that don't need batteries - not that I really know what to do with the answer I get - wavering between 6.5 and 7.5 - so I'll share the answers Legless' question gets please!

[legless]

thanks mega, i've sampled lot of areas seperately and the bit i want to grow brassicas in is 7.5, pleased thats ok. haven't tested the rest yet....

[tim]

to the best of my belief, the only things that prefer it a little more acid are potatoes (especially) and carrots.

Question - with crop rotation, how do you instantly chage the pH to suit the next crop?  And back again.  V clever!  SofA and chalk - yes - but you have to be pretty ambidexterous? - Tim

[gavin]

Don't know - but it seems to an awful lot of kerfuffle changing pH backwards and forwards.

I work on rule of thumb - just make sure that brassicas (lime-loving) follow potatoes in the rotation.  Three/four years on from the brassicas, the soil is probably acid enough for the potatoes.

All best - Gavin

[legless]

i was hoping not to have to alter anything to be honest, i thought veg was veg when it came to soil. is there anything that definitely won't work in neutralish soil? i have just dug about 25kg of potatoes out of the plot i will be using for cabbages so i suppose they did alright at 7.5.......

[gavin]

As far as I know, the problem with potatoes in soil not acid enough, is that they are much more susceptible to scab?  Which is basically superficial anyway.

I have an old book which tells me to lime the potato bed.

Hmm - it would be good to have somebody with a bit more knowledge than I have to comment.

All best - Gavin

[tim]

hmmm- lost a whole spiel, so start again. If I can remember.

like - trouble is, you can never know, without a control, what has happened from one season to another, and why. We have a diary going back 43 years which is a help. But the vagaries of weather etc can confound.

We started out at 4oz/sqyd lime until we found that, on average, we had 6.5 each year. As an amateur, I can't come to terms with monthly efforts at controlling the pH. Life's to short to try to control nature. - Tim