Trying to figure out how to measure 1 cu ft of dirt

My first grow, I had no idea what perlite even was and my soil was so heavy I watered twice in flower!

yeah, pretty much. just enough water to keep it from drying out, stir it up every couple of day, then leave it alone to cook for a couple of days.

Cool, thanks for the help guys!

Oh I was also going to ask about the soil ph. Most people add lime to their mix because the peat moss is acidic, but I'm only adding a quarter bucket per cu. ft. of peat moss, so maybe I'm not using enough to have to add any lime? I think someone also told me that the wood ash will do the same thing as lime.
My soil ph meter is junk, it reads a ph of 8 regardless of what you test, I even stuck it in pure peat moss, still read 8.
Can I ph some water to 7.0 then add some soil to the water and use my ph meter(for watering) to check the ph of the soil?

Ph is one thing, but your waters alkalinity (the hardness / calcium carbonate aspect) will buffer the ph. To get a true reading use water that is close to 0 pppm. so RO water, or Deionized water, or rain water sometimes. Then soak it a few hours, i like to let it sit overnight. I measure the ph of my re used pro mix, my compost, my ewc, and peat. so I know what each component is at. And yes wood ash is high in calcium carbonate so that would bring your ph up. careful as its very soluble and quick acting compared to prilled dolomite lime.

Strudelheim said:

Ph is one thing, but your waters alkalinity (the hardness / calcium carbonate aspect) will buffer the ph. To get a true reading use water that is close to 0 pppm. so RO water, or Deionized water, or rain water sometimes. Then soak it a few hours, i like to let it sit overnight. I measure the ph of my re used pro mix, my compost, my ewc, and peat. so I know what each component is at. And yes wood ash is high in calcium carbonate so that would bring your ph up. careful as its very soluble and quick acting compared to prilled dolomite lime.

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My tap is 400 ppm so I'm installing a r.o. system. Will that change things? Since it won't have all the calcium carbonate?

yes use the ro water, than add the media , let sit overnight and you will have a accurate measurement of the media ph. I suggest doing seperate containers and tests for ea thing as well as for your combined mix to give you a little more info on each part.

Well I checked the soils ph, I have one mixture at 7.5 and the other at 6.7
So I'm assuming that's going to be a problem, could I just mix some peat moss with them since spm is an acidic media?

NugHeuser said:

Well I checked the soils ph, I have one mixture at 7.5 and the other at 6.7
So I'm assuming that's going to be a problem, could I just mix some peat moss with them since spm is an acidic media?

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definitely you can add peat to acidify the mix. be sure to add some extra drainage material with your peat addition.

@ShLUbY
So I have one mixture dialed in at 6.3 and the other is getting there at 6.6, I decided to check the ppms of the strained water that sat overnight with the soil in a glass, and was a little startled, one was at 2000 ppms (500 scale) and the other was 2400 ppms. Does this sound right to you? I'm sure all the floating debris and soil accounts for something but 2000?
I'm probably going to be transplanting a few plants within a week and really don't want to instantly fry them..
I added two cups of total amendment per cubic foot, maybe even a little less than two cups with the extra peat and perlite I've got in there. Do you think I'll be alright? The plants are looking happy healthy and vigorous, starting to look a little on the hungry side in their ffof soil, about day 30 from sprout.

You will be fine. I mixed a soil way hotter than that..Plants are booming,