Soil pH in Palm Beach, FL: Lime or Sulfur?

Typical topsoil pH in Palm Beach, FL

Typical topsoil in Palm Beach, FL is pH 5.8, just outside the 6-7 range for vegetable garden. Test first; it may need nothing.

What Palm Beach needs, by plant

• Already in range: potatoes, strawberries, azaleas and rhododendrons.
• Just outside, test first: lawn (cool-season grass) (off by 0.2), vegetable garden (off by 0.2), roses (off by 0.2), pink hydrangeas (off by 0.2).
• Lime: tomatoes 2.1 lb/100 sq ft.
• Sulfur: blueberries 1 lb/100 sq ft; blue hydrangeas 0.6 lb/100 sq ft.

What to do next

If your test lands near 5.8, you can skip lime and sulfur for lawn (cool-season grass), vegetable garden, potatoes, strawberries, roses, azaleas and rhododendrons, pink hydrangeas.

How mixed the soil is

Of the 485,656 surveyed acres in Palm Beach, FL, 55% are moderately acidic (5.5-6.5), 32% are strongly acidic (below 5.5), 9% are near neutral (6.5-7.3), 3% are alkaline (above 7.3). Mapped soils run from pH 4.2 to 8.2, a spread of 4 units across 179 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 1.9% clay and 1.68% 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. 1% of mapped components carry free carbonate (lime already in the ground).

Palm Beach against the rest of Florida

pH 5.8 is 0.55 above the Florida median of 5.25. 58 of 67 Florida counties have more acidic topsoil. Nationally it is more acidic than the US county median of 6.05.

Closest in pH within the state: Martin (5.7), Levy (5.71), Collier (5.77), Indian River (5.78), St. Lucie (5.81), Hendry (5.82), Pinellas (5.82), Sarasota (5.82).

The range in Florida runs from Franklin at 4.5 to Monroe at 7.81; Palm Beach sits 39% of the way up.