Saturday jobs

Finished my first bed! Sieved the soil to get out the huge lumps (chucked them on a bed further down to hopefully break down a bit), raked it over, then covered with manure to protect the soil a bit. Used my new lawn shears (from Homebase) to trim the grass round the edge.

Started weeding the second bed. Covered the bit I did with cardboard to (hopefully) protect the soil - from more weeds sprouting, and from drying out too much. 

My first crop! Kind of, the Rhubarb stem a bit too bendy for my liking. Not sure if it's ok to eat a previous year's crop, or whether I should cut it down and start again.. 

Testing the soil

I have heavy clay soil, which means I need to add lots of organic matter to it to make it more workable. It's also a good idea to test the pH of the soil, to see whether it's acid or alkaline, and what treatments you need to give it to make it more neutral (unless you are growing acid loving plants). 

I used this kit which I bought on eBay - seemed to be good value and was easy to use. (If the link runs out, the seller was kkjc2.)

The only pain was that you need to use distilled water, otherwise you end up testing the pH of the water you use, rather than the soil. Distilled water is water that has boiled into condensation, and then cooled to become water again - hope that makes sense. You can buy it, or make it at home. I did make it in a very efficient way - I just boiled a couple of pans of water, and shook off the water forming on the lid. That only made enough for a couple of tests, but it's not too bad if you do it while making dinner or something else in the kitchen.

As you can see from the photos, my soil looks like it's a good neutral - 6.5 on the scale. You're supposed to do a few tests on different areas of the site, so I'll do some more once I've got more beds ready for planting.