Soil pH in Tarrant, TX: Lime or Sulfur?

Typical topsoil pH in Tarrant, TX

Typical topsoil in Tarrant, TX is pH 7.32 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 Tarrant 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 7.32, consider raised beds for anything acid-loving; with 56% of soils here carrying free lime, sulfur will not hold.

How mixed the soil is

Of the 417,164 surveyed acres in Tarrant, TX, 57% are alkaline (above 7.3), 24% are near neutral (6.5-7.3), 19% are moderately acidic (5.5-6.5). Mapped soils run from pH 5.2 to 8.2, a spread of 3 units across 108 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 30.2% clay and 1.89% 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. 56% of mapped components carry free carbonate (lime already in the ground), enough that sulfur gets neutralised before it does much.

Tarrant against the rest of Texas

pH 7.32 is 0.11 below the Texas median of 7.43. 107 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: Palo Pinto (7.29), Refugio (7.29), Andrews (7.31), Wichita (7.31), Hood (7.33), La Salle (7.33), Cooke (7.34), Dickens (7.35).

The range in Texas runs from Hardin at 4.64 to Upton at 8.19; Tarrant sits 75% of the way up.