Soil pH in Lauderdale, TN: Lime or Sulfur?

Typical topsoil pH in Lauderdale, TN

Typical topsoil in Lauderdale, TN is pH 6.2, already right for vegetable garden (6-7). Test before adding anything.

What Lauderdale needs, by plant

• Already in range: lawn (cool-season grass), vegetable garden, tomatoes, strawberries, roses, pink hydrangeas.
• Just outside, test first: potatoes (off by 0.2), azaleas and rhododendrons (off by 0.2).
• Sulfur: blueberries 2.8 lb/100 sq ft over 2 applications; blue hydrangeas 2.3 lb/100 sq ft over 2 applications.

What to do next

If your test lands near 6.2, you can skip lime and sulfur for lawn (cool-season grass), vegetable garden, tomatoes, potatoes, strawberries, roses, azaleas and rhododendrons, pink hydrangeas.

How mixed the soil is

Of the 295,703 surveyed acres in Lauderdale, TN, 50% are near neutral (6.5-7.3), 36% are moderately acidic (5.5-6.5), 14% are strongly acidic (below 5.5). Mapped soils run from pH 4.9 to 7.3, a spread of 2.4 units across 81 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 22.3% clay and 1.76% organic matter, which this site treats as loam. Moving it one pH unit takes about 7 lb of lime or 2.3 lb of sulfur per 100 sq ft. 1% of mapped components carry free carbonate (lime already in the ground).

Lauderdale against the rest of Tennessee

pH 6.2 is 0.85 above the Tennessee median of 5.35. 93 of 95 Tennessee counties have more acidic topsoil. Nationally it is more alkaline than the US county median of 6.05.

Closest in pH within the state: Trousdale (5.97), Wilson (5.98), Tipton (6.01), Rutherford (6.14), Lake (6.59).

The range in Tennessee runs from Bledsoe at 4.78 to Lake at 6.59; Lauderdale sits 78% of the way up.