Is anybody checking the pH of their water after they add nutrients?
My water is checking 7.3 when I start and when I add Micrel 5-0-0 it drops to 3.5
When I add SiTKO 0-7-17 it jumps to 10.3 and I added enough Neu Balance to drop a 5 gallon pail to 6.5 and yet the best I could get it was 9.1
Maybe you should be collecting your rain water Ryan. A couple large water tanks hooked up to your downspouts should collect enough nice clean rain water for you, instead of that swamp water you currently. We used swamp water for a couple years, but it got to be too much extra work & the water wasn't as good as I thought it would be. Now we have a 1500 gal tank (garage roof) & a 1200 gallon tank (house roof) that collects all our water for the garden. It has saved us many hours of hauling water from the swamp down the road to the patch. I also think it's better water for the plants.
My water is terrible. High 7s pH and my bicarbonates are double that of A&Ls "severe" rating. There's not much you can do with water I think. I pull from a marsh that's too stagnant. I wouldn't worry about your levels since it really opens a can of worms if you start to adjust water numbers.
ok, thanks guys
I only adjust once before any additives
No. Only checked it once. We also use rain water & it's fairly neutral. Not sure how much the ferts change the pH of the water, but I don't think it really affects the pH of the soil that much, unless you mix these fertilizers with all your daily watering.
Maybe someone that adjusts their water daily will speak up.
Good luck,
I just use rain water that I store in 1000 litre water containers for my plants. I don't test the water, the rainwater should be clean because I'm not near any factories.
Simon Southwell