Wilko soil tester

[Dai H]

Hi everyone, i came upon this site by accident and it looks the best place to get no nonsense advice.I am pulling what little hair i have out and hope someone can help me.
I was bought a Wilko soil tester as a present and am confused as to the readings!!
To try it out i used it on a growbag (for my toms).the ph reading is 7 but and this is where i am confused it is showing that on the alkaline side of the readout.Then I look at the rhs and it looks like that is the acidic side,so can someone please enlighten me as to where I am going wrong.
Many hanks in anticipation
Dai H

[Snoop Puss]

7 looks to be about in the middle:
pH Scale

Oh, hello and welcome. Friendly folk here, always happy to answer questions. Plenty of nonsense, though.

[veggiechicken]

Hi Dai and welcome (or is it Croeso?).
Is it one of those testers with a probe? Having tried 3 different ones, side by side in the same soil, I decided that they were just as confused as I was. They didn't give the same readings anywhere.

I'm sure someone who understands these readings will be along soon but I wouldn't be too confident that this is a "no-nonsense" forum.

[Dai H]

Thank You

Many thanks for the very nice welcome message.Yes it is one of those with the 2 prongs.It was a nice gift to me as for the last couple of years my tomato yield in the greenhouse have not been what you would expect (i always use grow bags) and wanted to know what to add to the bag to 'beef' them up as it were to up the yield. At 69 I have been at this gardening lark for a while but just cannot figure out where it has suddenly gone wrong me being a creature of habit an all, you know if it aint broke dont fix it well it appears to be broke!!
Regards
Dai H

[veggiechicken]

Never mind Dai, as long as you're not broke as a result.
I grow in grow bag compost, but I empty it into pots ( as it goes further that way).
Do you feed them once they start producing toms? Most people use Tomorite or similar in the watering can.

[Greenleaves]

Welcome to the vine, enjoy the benefits of the advice and humour

I dont use any soil testers, probe or chemical, waste of money in my opinion. Some shops keep grow bags outside for several years, most of the limited nutrients will have washed out. As VC suggests, feed and water

[mcdood]

7 is neutral. as the reading goes upwards from there the more alkaline you get and as the number goes lower than 7 the more acid.

[Dai H]

Thank You Again

Many thanks for all of your replies to my post, all of the advice and comments have been more than welcome and I look forward to being on the forum in the very near future
Regards
Dai H

[Baldy]

In terms of your recent drop in yield its very likely that its due to storage of the grow bags / age of the grow bags. I'm pretty sure that the grow bags I buy aren't always the same 'composition' year on year.
After copious research (ok I checked one site https://www.tomatogrowing.co.uk/tomato-plants-and-ph which happened to agree with my beliefs) tomatoes like the soil to be very slightly acidic - 6.8 - but I would imagine they would be happy enough with 7.
As the linked site suggests - try watering with rainwater if you don't already - that will be slightly acidic
Having said all that - I reckon other factors are at play - so I'd be looking at adding a bit more nutrient (tomorite) - maybe more watered down than usual but done more regularly.

[Bluenowhere]

I also have a soil tester, checked against one of the little kits and mine is pretty accurate, I’m not really instested in a scientific point or two on the scale but the is the acidic enough for my blueberries (and I was a scientist). I think for general use the two probe ones are okay.

As other have said Ph7 is neutral, dead middle of the scale.