hey everyone the reason why I'm making
this video is
um to show that we need to check our
soil in our garden um I've had this
garden now for a year this is a Back to
Eden Garden I have really bad soil here
uh it's Clay
basically so uh if you watch my other
video I'll put a link in the description
below and how I started the uh Back to
Eden
Garden I thought at least at least by
now my soil would be getting better but
uh it's not uh it's still pretty much
clay underneath there uh my chips are
breaking down underneath and maybe it'll
need another year or two before it
really starts uh getting better but
anyways the problem I've been having is
um most of the stuff I have in here is
transplanted from seedlings I started in
my garage uh back in February beginning
of February and planted everything in
here by mid to late March that's our
last frost here in East
Texas
um so and some things I planted a direct
sew like my beans and things like that
uh they sprouted and they got about this
tall and stopped growing and pretty much
everything else stunted we're 3 months
in now and everything you can see it's
still pretty small very
small uh I should be
I mean these things should be a lot
bigger anyways I had some friends come
over and they're pretty good gard
garders and they told me it looks like
everything is nitrogen
deficient now I've been using
organic um
fertilizers and organic composted manur
and I've been putting it in each you
know each plant uh but you know what and
I kind of knew this but if you look at
the NPK the your nitrogen f phorus and
potassium ratios on on those packages
they're pretty low uh especially the
composted manures I was buying I mean
they're 0 five on
each on the
NPK um that's not going to do much for
growth now the organic matter itself is
good uh in time the bacteria will start
releasing you know will start uh
decomposing it more and uh building up
your your micro uh uh Flora or your
microbacteria in your in your
soil um and the mpk will get better in
the
future but I'm talking about the here
and now uh I don't want to lose my crop
and I want to be able to eat something
out of here too this
year uh
so they said it looked like it was
nitrogen deficient I wouldn't got this
kit here
uh this is by hold all it's a soil test
kit uh I picked this up at uh LS about
$12 uh and it checks for your uh pH your
nitrogen phosphorus and pottassium
um and each test uh bile here is uh
colorcoded uh so we're going to do that
check that also what I did I've had this
this is a electronic soil test kit or
electronic soil test
uh this one here in particular is made
by Sun leaves.com
what this does it checks uh how much
sunlight you're getting getting in your
garden it checks for soil moisture and
temperature and this particular model
has got a switch in the back here you
can check your pH but once you stick
this in the ground it'll check for all
that um my pH in the soil here was
checking between four .0 and five on the
pH scale and that's pretty acidic uh
we've been getting a lot of rain here in
East Texas so that doesn't help uh on
your on the
acidity so uh I'm going to check the
soil and if it needs nitrogen and
phosphorus and potassium and all that
I'm going to have to add it now I tried
the organic route and it doesn't seem to
be working right now uh I may go with a
synthetic fertilizer uh uh four
Gardens and just to give everything a
boost and we'll see what
happens uh the reason why I've done some
research your your uh non-organic
fertilizers uh the reason why they're
not good longterm is because they are
fertilizer
salts and the first few times you use
them yeah they're great and everything
just blooms but if you keep using them
you know year after year
uh what I've uh read up on is they kill
the micro bacteria all your all the
bacteria in the soil pretty much because
the salts become
concentrated and if it's too salty your
soil of course you know things won't
grow so shortterm shortterm use it's
okay it's fine but not longterm uh so if
you're going to use the short term I
think that's fine to save your crop um
in the meantime keep adding good compost
good composted
manure uh to keep the micro bacteria and
all the microorganisms alive in your
soil so anyways let's go try this out
and see how it
works all right this is everything that
comes in the kit you get the
instructions on how to test the kit uh
this is for your pH and this is color
coded for your high alkaline or V acidic
uh same thing here for for your NPK
these are all the nitrogen phosphorus
and potassium
here uh and of course high in low um you
get this plastic uh dropper
here uh so you can put the water into
each of the little vials and the
capsules are color coded with the Caps
of the vials also so this is for your pH
this is your uh nitrogen
phosphorus and potassium and this is
kind of nice too here they give you this
uh chart here it shows you all your
different types of
fruits uh fruits and herbs vegetables
and herbs I'm sorry a household plants
uh flowering trees and ornamental
grasses uh Turf and ornamental grasses
it tells you the pH level uh what each
plant
likes so uh let's start testing it and
see where we're
at all right I had a little uh scoop
here from something I don't remember
maybe some kind of a protein shake or
something uh but it doesn't matter if
the ratio is a one part soil to five
parts water uh that was the soil that I
got which is again mostly clay
um so the the rest of this I can get rid
of and then we're going to put I'm going
to clean this out put this the soil in
there with five parts of this and um and
we're going to mix it up real
good all right I put my one part soil to
five parts water mixed it all up by hand
and now you have muddy water so you got
to let this sit until it settles let all
the dirt settle to the bottom and the
water at the top should be fairly clear
in my case again I have Clay and this is
going to probably take take more than a
day all right the ph1 is a very simple
one to do uh I already I filled it up to
the first line then I filled the rest up
with water shook it for about a minute
or so but uh in the test here it says
that if you have clay soil it's going to
take quite a while for those fine clay
particles to settle down could take
anywhere from 30 minutes to to to a
day okay on the pH test
it's been sitting for roughly 10
minutes uh most of the uh fine clay here
is settle down uh it's still the water
is really cloudy so it's really hard to
say but it looks to be between
uh probably 6.0 to
6.5 um it's really hard to say but I'm
I'm guessing around
6.0 uh with the electronic meter I'm
getting
5.0
so you know it's showing me that my soil
is on the acidic
side all right I got the water samples
in the vials um it's still pretty cloudy
I've had that water sitting in that
container for 2 days and um it just uh
that's as clear as it's going to be for
now
anyways um it should be all right uh we
will see so now what we're going to do
is break open one of these capsules here
and the correct color so the purple cap
blue and the orange and accordingly
we'll just open this these up and put
one in each one
here we'll start with the purple
first probably a good idea to knock the
powder to the
bottom and then try and separate
this yeah it worked pretty
good okay there's
one that's the purple
pill and then we got to shake
it all right Shake thoroughly and I
did and we'll put that
there next we'll go with the
blue so the first one
was uh
nitrogen now we're going to go to the
phosphorus get a blue
pill and again knock the powder to one
one
side that was good
all
right put the cap on
that and then shake it
thoroughly that was shaken
now we're going to try the
potassium all right
then shake that up real
good and it says to let it sit for about
10 minutes after you after it's shaking
and we'll come back in uh 10 minutes and
we'll see what that looks
like all right so it's been 10 minutes
uh they say in their on their directions
here for best results allowed daylight
not direct sunlight to uhum illuminate
uh the
solution so I came outside and I put a
white piece of paper in the background
there
and the chart next to it to compare the
nitrogen uh all that stuff you see
floating around that that was a sediment
that wasn't a water I guess that powder
I put in there clumped to it and it's
sinking to the
bottom but anyways
um the solution on the nitrogen side
which would be this one right here which
is this one right
here um it's nonexistent basically it's
almost crystal clear I mean there's not
even a hint of purple or violet or
whatever it
is um so that one there the nitrogen is
just not
existent the phosphorus I want to say
it's on the very low side because I do
see a hint of blue in that water I don't
know if you can see it in the
video um but I do see it so it's very
low though but it is it is
there all right now the pottassium it
looks like it's very high the the color
of that water is because you got to
remember the uh sediment that's in that
water uh was kind of add a reddish tint
to it um but I want to say it's right up
there at the very
top so um ah either way you look at it
it's very high on the potassium so I
don't have to worry about potassium so
this at least lets me know the
fertilizer to put in there um has to be
very high high in nitrogen and um
phosphorus all right guys you've seen
the results uh I got no nitrogen
basically very low in uh
phosphorus and my uh potassium is way up
there so I was going to get some of my
uh ashes for my wood stove from the
winter and put it in the garden but it
looks like a better or
not uh now it's up to you whether you
want to go the synthetic the synthetic
route for the fertilizer or organic I
tried the organic uh organic takes a
while for for things to
work um but that's the best route but if
you're in a hurry like I am I don't want
to lose my crop I'm going to go with the
synthetic route and I'm going to do a
couple of doses of uh synthetic
fertilizer now it's like I said earlier
in the video the synthetic fertilizer
the what's bad about it is if you use it
too much uh if you're dependent on it
all the time uh the fertilizer is a uh
is a fertilizer salt and if you keep
using it all the time that salt builds
up in your soil uh and then as you know
a soil that's too salty nothing will
grow in it
anymore so I'm going to do a couple of
rounds of uh synthetic fertilizer
whether it's miracle grower or whatever
I can get uh that's four Gardens at
least uh uh just to give everything a
boost and uh for this year during the
winter I am going to uh seriously look
at getting uh some more manure some more
compost or composted manure uh and
really putting it in here and working up
the soil and uh I'll do my research you
know and um and and see what I can
do but in the meantime it looks like
Miracle Grow oh well
so uh I guess that's about it guys uh
thank you for watching I hope you
learned something from this and I know I
did so uh got to get your soil right or
things won't grow all right guys thanks
for watching please like And subscribe
and I'd greatly appreciate it thank you
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