I was planning on throwing some in with my next top dress application. But interested to know what others say as well Legs
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Trying like hell to avoid shelling out for a water softener ya know? Part of the reason I’m hesitant to go with a big bed of soil, at least with smaller pots I can dump em, flush,ream mend and cycle in fresher soil.
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Heard that!
I also remember dumping bag after bag of salt in my folks softener in my younger years. Always just assumed that would be bad for plants?
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Don’t treat tests as the holy grail of knowing what’s going on.
One sample is a poor representation of your entire soil.
If anything it makes one worry and do all kinds of things that can cause more trouble than anything else.
Whatever happened to LITFA around here? 
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I’m sure you could just top dress with garden gypsum and water it in. Solution grade gypsum at about a gram per gallon would be more effective IMO.
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I hear ya @Rogue… I get inside my head too much sometimes. I’ve decided though to pretty much hold course but adding a touch more gypsum and a new filter for good measure. I’ll also be aiming for a bit more runoff at least through veg
I am not at all 100% confident on the test
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You may be able to get a test through your local ag extension office, though Logan may be faster, and you can specify what test you want.
Especially if you have chloramine showing in the test. It doesn’t dissapte like chlorine, that’s why they use it. HD has a filter that will take it out.
If the plants are in the ground, there’s plenty of action there to grind up the minerals. Big beds, maybe, IDK. I have a well. The Total Alkalynity(TA) is off the chart. I can’t use it in small pots.
Yup, mix some into the soil, and water it in. And, get some soluble Ca to mix in your feeds. IDK, but I’ve never heard of anyone with a Ca toxicity.
I have a softener. I bypass it to a RO Buddy, cheapo RO system. It uses about 4x more water than it puts out. In my case, it’s not waste. It drains outside, and eventually goes back into the watershed.
TBH, I don’t know if there’s enough salt in the discharge to hurt plants. The grass is green where mine dumps. I still don’t use it 
Unless he took a bunch of samples from around the bed, and mixed them together. That would be pretty close, I’d think. That’s what we do in the gardens.
Where do you get that? The stuff I linked above is sold out, I just noticed 
Don’t be shy with it, lol!
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Hey @HorseBadorites so you mean that TO buddy does the job of softening the water for you? I was under the impression that an RO system wouldn’t correct for hard water, curious now if that’s incorrect. I for sure don’t want to have to run all the household water through an RO, that would be crazy but if there’s something I could switch on when I need to pull water for the plants I’d be interested for sure
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I found small amounts (one pound) at the brew store. It’s used to condition water for beer and wine.
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I was lookin online there today and they are all out of stock. Delivery in April 
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I did make the sample up out of 4 different locations and depths
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Bezos?
I help in some community gardens. We take a bunch of samples from each area that a specific plant will grow in. Dump them in a clean bucket, mix them up, then put that in the sample box.
Depending on your bed size, those 4x may have been a good representation.
I always felt like I was chasing my tail with indoors mud, lol! I am envious of folks who can pull it off.
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We’re about to find out if I’m one 
I try my damndest to stay away from bezos but sometimes it is what it is
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Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. More water, less frequently. I know you were feeling a little uncomfortable with the moisture levels last grow, but yeah, probably watering to runoff would be the best course of action. Didn’t you just put your 3x3 in one of those hydro tray things? At least you won’t get water all over the floor now haha.
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Yup, it’s in the tray now so I am much more comfortable going a little harder on the water…
Thanks for reassuring @minitiger !! 
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RunOff it is @minitiger…
This will be it for a few days at least.
I gave it 6 gallons tonight so am tracking the water level and making notes on the runoff.
Ph is right at 6.8
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Nice!
So you check the pH of your runoff? I’ve always thought about doing that, or even just checking the pH of my water before I drench, but I never actually have haha. What would you do if it was too high/low? Add pH up/down? I always thought that was kind of a no-no in organic gardening, just based on things I’ve read (also read the opposite, because the internet haha). I remember on some thread on grasscity where Coot actually admonished somebody who mentioned adjusting their pH.
No big surprise there, though haha. That dude chastises everybody haha!
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This is the first time that I have checked it @minitiger . Mostly wanted to check it to cross reference the soil test results. At least that part was fairly accurate.
I would not add ph up or down. I’d add more oyster flour, rock dust etc. I believe there are some KNF inputs that help with ph as well, need to look into that more.
Yeah I’ve heard those coot stories lol, guess hense the name right lol. I was on grass city back in the day so I never really got the privilege of seeing many of his interactions. Think he got banned from GC in record time.
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Haha, yeah, he’s still on there , though. I think. Agnesdawg, lumperdawgz or something, he’s got a bunch of different names haha.
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