To lime or not to lime?

[Karen Atkinson]

Have never limed. I have no idea what PH my soil is. Before I took it over, it was overrun with weeds. Still struggling with them to be honest. They are dandelion and creeping buttercup mostly. Would this give a clue where on the scale my soul tends to lie?

[Karen Atkinson]

[chriscross1966]

Probably fairly neutral, if it was acid you'd get some weird stuff, and if it was really alkaline nothing much but brassicas would grown anyway... even though my soil is a bit on th ehigh-side PH wise I always lime the holes for brassicas a bit, but I always have to sulphur the potatoes....

[davyw1]

Without testing your soil the only way you will find out is if you get poor results from having a low PH.
If the allotment has not been cultivated for a few years then it should be fine another sign is weeds like nettles and chick weed do not grow well in poor soil.

If you are worried about not liming then have a look in TeeGee,s almanac he has a very good system for liming while planting

[manicscousers]

We always lime the brassicas because we have club root but, as davy says, without testing you can't tell. Some parts of our plot were 4 and full of that ? Marram grass stuff and stunk when we tried to turn it. Yours sounds reasonable. 

[AlanP]

My allotment is split into 4 large beds (25ftx12ft) I rotate my crops, the pea and bean bed is mucked and the brasica bed is limed every year, works well for me

Alan

[Gordonmull]

Not sure if this data is that great as it's from the US but:

Buttercup grows at a pH of 5.6-7.2: http://plants.findthedata.org/l/1389/Ranunculus-repens

Dandelion is 4.8-7.5 http://plants.findthedata.org/l/1660/Taraxacum-officinale

So you can narrow it down to pH 5.6-7.2, so far, by what's growing. Any other identifiable plants on site?

[davyw1]

You could try this......anyone can try it