Soil pH in Tulare, CA: Lime or Sulfur?

Typical topsoil pH in Tulare, CA

Typical topsoil in Tulare, CA is pH 7.27 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 Tulare 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 7.27, consider raised beds for anything acid-loving; with 43% of soils here carrying free lime, sulfur will not hold.

How mixed the soil is

Of the 1,203,798 surveyed acres in Tulare, CA, 47% are near neutral (6.5-7.3), 44% are alkaline (above 7.3), 10% are moderately acidic (5.5-6.5). Mapped soils run from pH 5.8 to 9.8, a spread of 4 units across 149 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 20% clay and 1.36% 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. 43% of mapped components carry free carbonate (lime already in the ground), enough that sulfur gets neutralised before it does much.

Tulare against the rest of California

pH 7.27 is 0.73 above the California median of 6.54. 51 of 58 California counties have more acidic topsoil. Nationally it is more alkaline than the US county median of 6.05.

Closest in pH within the state: San Luis Obispo (7.12), Riverside (7.15), Ventura (7.22), Merced (7.27), Kern (7.49), San Bernardino (7.61), Kings (7.92), Inyo (7.95).

The range in California runs from Del Norte at 5.43 to Imperial at 8.16; Tulare sits 67% of the way up.