Soil pH in Hill, TX: Lime or Sulfur?

Typical topsoil pH in Hill, TX

Typical topsoil in Hill, TX is pH 7.63 and calcareous, so sulfur won't lower it for long. For vegetable garden, choose alkaline-tolerant varieties and add compost rather than fighting the soil.

What Hill needs, by plant

• Beds or pots instead: lawn (cool-season grass), vegetable garden, tomatoes, potatoes, strawberries, roses, blueberries, azaleas and rhododendrons, blue hydrangeas, pink hydrangeas.

What to do next

If your test confirms pH near 7.63, consider raised beds for anything acid-loving; with 70% of soils here carrying free lime, sulfur will not hold.

How mixed the soil is

Of the 541,146 surveyed acres in Hill, TX, 70% are alkaline (above 7.3), 26% are near neutral (6.5-7.3), 4% are moderately acidic (5.5-6.5). Mapped soils run from pH 5.8 to 8.2, a spread of 2.4 units across 89 soil components. 70% of the land falls in one class, so the county figure is a fair first guess for most yards here.

Clay, organic matter and rates

Topsoil here averages 37.3% clay and 1.87% organic matter, which this site treats as clay. Moving it one pH unit takes about 11.5 lb of lime or 3.4 lb of sulfur per 100 sq ft. 70% of mapped components carry free carbonate (lime already in the ground), enough that sulfur gets neutralised before it does much.

Hill against the rest of Texas

pH 7.63 is 0.2 above the Texas median of 7.43. 170 of 254 Texas counties have more acidic topsoil. Nationally it is more alkaline than the US county median of 6.05.

Closest in pH within the state: Hockley (7.62), Willacy (7.62), Burnet (7.63), Donley (7.63), Knox (7.63), Aransas (7.64), Scurry (7.64), Cochran (7.65).

The range in Texas runs from Hardin at 4.64 to Upton at 8.19; Hill sits 84% of the way up.