Each year, before planting season, my garden and I get regular checkups. I visit my doctor, but the garden requires a house call.
These checkups are important. Both the garden and I need to be in top shape for spring. Me, for digging; the garden, for growing.
The latest tests produced mixed results. I passed my physical, after promising to shed 20 pounds.
However, the garden is ill. It suffers from acid indigestion, for which it needs a large dose of medication.
What the garden needs is a 500-pound Rolaid, or the same amount of powdered limestone. Either way, it's a prescription I doubt the pharmacy will deliver.
I know the garden has heartburn because I examined it with a soil-test meter, a battery-operated device which, when placed in the ground, measures the acidity of the soil.
The readings surprised me. Much of the garden soil is so acidic, you'd think it was living on Mexican food instead of organic fertilizers.
Adding lime will sweeten the soil and make it more palatable for my plants this summer. Liming the garden is like adding sugar to lemonade.
Most flowers and vegetables thrive in near-neutral conditions, which allow the plants' roots to absorb minerals from the soil. Those minerals won't dissolve in overly sour soil. Eventually the plants starve, no matter how rich the land.
Hence, the importance of soil tests. All garden loam looks the same to us, but plants can tell the difference. So check the acidity of your garden. Give the plants a break. Would you want to live in a world where everything tastes like lemon juice? Neither do plants.
On the other hand, certain plants like being sourpusses. My soil is perfect for raising azaleas, bleeding hearts and blueberries, all of which worship acid soil. But I want to grow beets, cabbages and cucumbers, which favor more alkaline conditions.
It's easy to sweeten the soil in small gardens or in pockets of a large yard. It's more challenging, and often futile, to try to change the chemistry of entire landscapes to accommodate one's favorite plants. Particularly in this age of acid rain.
As industrial pollutants fall to earth, nature suffers. Rainfall more sour than grapefruit juice has crippled spruce trees in the Appalachians, damaged half of Germany's 18 million forested acres, and triggered the demise of many species of Siberian lichens, the reindeer's main food source there.
