little phd being probably one of the most crucial things you can do about your garden before you get started in the year one of the easiest ways to check that soil ph is with the standard litmus paper while you go about doing that get to your bed make a small depression in the soil take it down hopefully into the moisture level of the soil what you're going to want to do is make a slurry of soil and water some good old-fashioned mud make sure it's nicely incorporated into the dirt so the water starts to take on a bit of the ph of the dirt it's important when you're doing this that you're using a bottled water that's normally used for drinking that water will have normally a pretty neutral ph to have as a starting point and then you just take your litmus paper submerge it in the muddy water let's sit and soak it up for just a second pull it out and then you can take an accurate reading based on the standard that's on your packaging right there a little low maybe between a uh five eight and a six but we can bring that up to some amendments and some things down the road