Soil pH in Kings, NY: Lime or Sulfur?

Typical topsoil pH in Kings, NY

Typical topsoil in Kings, NY is pH 7.15, just outside the 6-7 range for vegetable garden. Test first; it may need nothing.

What Kings needs, by plant

• Just outside, test first: lawn (cool-season grass) (off by 0.2), vegetable garden (off by 0.2), roses (off by 0.2).
• Beds or pots instead: tomatoes, potatoes, strawberries, blueberries, azaleas and rhododendrons, blue hydrangeas, pink hydrangeas.

What to do next

If your test lands near 7.15, you can skip lime and sulfur for lawn (cool-season grass), vegetable garden, roses.

How mixed the soil is

Of the 50,606 surveyed acres in Kings, NY, 50% are alkaline (above 7.3), 28% are near neutral (6.5-7.3), 13% are strongly acidic (below 5.5), 8% are moderately acidic (5.5-6.5). Mapped soils run from pH 4.4 to 8.6, a spread of 4.2 units across 542 soil components. No single class covers 60% of the county, so two gardens a few miles apart here can need opposite treatments. Test your own bed.

Clay, organic matter and rates

Topsoil here averages 4.9% clay and 1.5% organic matter, which this site treats as sandy. Moving it one pH unit takes about 3 lb of lime or 1.2 lb of sulfur per 100 sq ft. 77% of mapped components carry free carbonate (lime already in the ground), enough that sulfur gets neutralised before it does much.

Kings against the rest of New York

pH 7.15 is 1.38 above the New York median of 5.77. 61 of 62 New York counties have more acidic topsoil. Nationally it is more alkaline than the US county median of 6.05.

Closest in pH within the state: Genesee (6.43), Bronx (6.51), New York (6.91), Queens (6.99).