My Go-To Soil Meter

Whether you need some help tracking the watering needs of your house plants, or are curious about your garden's soil pH, the 3-in-1 Soil Meter from The Gardener's Shop can do it all.

Image courtesy The Gardener's Shop.

This gadget looks like a serious piece of equipment, but it's seriously easy to use. Just toggle the switch to whichever metric you want to measure and stick the metal prongs a few inches down into the soil. In a few moments (sometimes seconds), you'll get an accurate read of your conditions.

Image courtesy The Gardener's Shop.

I recently used mine to measure the pH level of our backyard soil. I had a feeling it would lean acidic and I was right (note that anything below a 6 is considered acidic and only a 7 or 8 is truly alkaline soil.)

Our soil showed a pH reading of roughly 5.5, which is typical for our part of Georgia.