Re: fall clean up

A small little note on compost and soil pH.  Soil pH is determined by the parent material of the soil and the effects of weathering on that material.  Compost or leaf litter has a negligible effect on pH and its effects are limited to a small distance into the soil.

Unless you are planting in pure compost I would not worry about its effects on your normal soil pH.

Its always a good idea to have a soil test done especially if you plan on growing plants that are less tolerant of a wide range of soil conditions.

As a general rule-slightly acid soils are richer in available nutrients to plants were extremely acid soils have much of their free nutrients leached out of them.

Alkaline soils tend to be heavy in different salts                                                                                        that are bound up on the soil particles and plants need to work harder to obtain nutrients without poisoning them selves with the salts but these soils can be very rich indeed.


Paul
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