How to Apply Garden Lime

Using lime for home garden purposes is an excellent way to ensure your vegetables and plants get the nutrients they need from soil with too much acidity. When you use the garden lime correctly, it can improve soil structure, making it easier to nurture your plants and vegetables the way they deserve. Here, you can learn more about how to apply lime, strategies for spreading lime, what to do if you add too much lime and more to ensure your garden thrives.

Conducting Soil Mapping and Testing Before Getting Lime for Gardens

If you want to understand the basic structure of the soil in your area, soil maps are a great place to start. Soil maps will help you understand whether your part of the country generally has an acidic or alkaline soil, and you’ll find the type of soil (clay, loam or sand) you’ll most likely see in your county. The United States Department of Agriculture has produced soil maps showing the general soil types found throughout the United States.

Although you can gain an overview of the soil in your area, the only way to know for sure whether or not your garden needs lime is to request a professional soil test. Dig your soil sample from the area where you want to plant your vegetable garden, flowers or lawn. Dig up about half a cup of soil from approximately 4-6 inches below ground level. Take several samples and mix them together in your container. Label the container and bring it to the lab.

Tips for Conducting Soil Testing to Ensure Accuracy and Timeliness

When you’re conducting soil tests, keep the following in mind:

Conduct testing three months in advance: Conduct a soil test at least three months before you intend to plant in the area. This gives you plenty of time to complete the test, analyze the soil test results and implement test result recommendations, such as garden lime or fertilizer.
Use single-area samples: Only use samples from holes you dig in a single-use area. For instance, if you’re planting both a lawn and a vegetable garden, don’t mix soil samples from the lawn area with those from the vegetable garden area. You want only vegetable garden soil in one sample and lawn soil in another.
Clean all testing equipment beforehand: If you’re recycling a bucket or container to use for your soil test, clean and dry it thoroughly before adding soil samples to it. Any residual chemicals can affect the test readings.
Use plastic or glass containers: Metal can change the soil test results, so only use plastic or glass containers to gather and store your soil for testing.
Know what you want to grow: Tell the person conducting the soil test what you intend to plant in the area from where you’ve drawn the soil sample. They may recommend different amounts of lime to adjust the soil pH based on what you intend to grow. You may need to lower or raise the pH of your soil.

Even if you’ve had your garden soil tested in previous years, it’s a good idea to get it tested each year in early spring. Adding commercial fertilizers to your home garden can acidify the soil, changing the pH and pushing it outside healthy levels to grow your garden. Testing soil before adding garden lime and other amendments ensures you’re adding the right amount.

Determine When to Apply Lime to a Vegetable Garden

Some experts recommend adding lime to your garden at the end of the growing season to give it enough time to work through the soil. Lime needs time to react with water in order to be beneficial to your garden plants, so at the very least, it needs several weeks or months to adjust the pH and help make more nutrients available to your plants.

If you test your soil at the end of the winter, add limestone for plants immediately, as your test results recommend. Lime for the garden works best when you mix or till it into the soil at the depth in which you will plant your garden — so don’t just spread lime for the garden on the surface and hope it works. Mix it into the soil well before your frost-free date indicates you can plant your vegetables or flowers.

Gardens found in acidic soil areas benefit from annual or bi-annual applications of garden lime. Raised bed gardens may get away with fewer applications. A soil test, however, is the best way to tell whether or not it is time to apply garden lime.

The following general guidelines for when to apply lime can be used if you forget to get a soil test:

Early spring: Apply lime to vegetable gardens and flower beds prior to planting.
Summer: Apply lime to pastures.
Fall: Apply lime to vegetable gardens after you harvest the last crop.

How Much Lime to Add to Your Garden?

Adding the correct amount of lime to your garden involves understanding soil types, recognizing the unique needs of your soil and recognizing the delayed timeline of adding lime to prevent adding too much. Here’s what you need to know:

Understanding Soil Type for Lime Application

The results of your garden’s soil test will help you determine how much garden lime to apply. You’ll need to know your soil’s starting pH and the composition or soil structure. Soil generally falls into three categories:

Clay soil: This soil type is characterized by tiny soil particles that stick together, making drainage difficult. Clay soil may dry into hard sheets that are tough to work with or dig into. It may have plenty of nutrients for plants, but the plant’s roots have a hard time breaking through the tiny particles to get to them.
Sand: Sandy soil has the largest particle sizes and the lowest amount of nutrients. Water drains away rapidly through sandy soil.
Loam: Loamy soil is the ideal soil type. Loam soil is an equal mix of clay, sand and organic material that forms a rich soil base that almost all plants love. Very few gardens naturally have loamy soil, but loam can form from other soil types through the careful application of compost and other organic materials.

Testing Your Soil at Home

To determine how much lime to add to your garden, first examine your soil or the previously mentioned soil maps to see what kind of garden soil you’re working with. If you’re not sure, you can do a simple soil structure test at home:

Take a glass or plastic jar like an empty, clean jelly jar or mayonnaise jar with a screw-top lid.
Place about one cup of garden soil into the jar and fill the jar with water.
Screw the lid onto the jar and shake the mixture for 30 seconds.
Set the jar down and wait five minutes.

Here’s what the results can tell you:

If the water is clear and most of the soil settled back onto the bottom of the jar, you have sandy or sandy loam soil.
If the soil particles remain in suspension and the water looks murky and cloudy after five minutes, you most likely have clay soil. The tiny clay particles remain suspended in water much longer than sandy or loam soil.

You can also test your soil by hand. Scoop a tablespoon of garden soil into the palm of your hand. Add a few ounces of water and roll the soil to form a ball. The less water you need to form a ball, the higher the clay content. If the soil never forms a ball at all, it’s very high in sand content. The bigger sand particles don’t cling together the way tiny clay particles do in water.

Adding Lime Based on Your Specific Soil Type and pH Levels

Now that you know your garden’s approximate soil composition, here’s how to estimate garden lime needs. All figures are from Cornell University’s Cooperative Extension site. Each amount of lime is for 100 square feet of garden soil that you will mix into the soil.

Sand soil types starting at 5.0 pH should add 10.6 pounds of lime.
Sand soil types starting at 5.5 pH should add 4.2 pounds of lime.
Sand soil types starting at 6.0 pH should add 1.7 pounds of lime.
Loam soil types starting at 5.0 pH should add 21.1 pounds of lime.
Loam soil types starting at 5.5 pH should add 8.4 pounds of lime.
Loam soil types starting at 6.0 pH should add 3.3 pounds of lime.
Clay soil types starting at 5.0 pH should add 29 pounds of lime.
Clay soil types starting at 5.5 pH should add 11.6 pounds of lime.
Lay soil types starting at 6.0 pH should add 4.5 pounds of lime.

Preventing the Effects of Adding Too Much Lime

It is crucial to administer the appropriate amount of lime. Adding more lime than your garden needs can result in several problems, including:

Reduced soil capacity to hold potassium
Zinc or manganese deficiencies
Poor water absorption
Nutrient imbalances

How to Apply Limestone to Gardens

Lime needs water to mix into the soil and become available to plants. It’s not a quick fix. You won’t see your lawn turn a rich, emerald green after applying lime. Think of lime like vitamins for the soil. When you take a vitamin pill, you’re taking vitamins to boost your long-term health, not for quick energy. Adding lime to the soil is like a vitamin. It’s for the long-term health of the soil and your plants.

Here’s how you can apply lime for the best results:

Spreader: Most home gardeners use a lime or drop spreader to spread powdered lime on lawns and gardens. This machine has a front hopper that you fill with powdered lime. The spreader sprays out the powder as you walk behind it and push it forward. To apply lime to lawns, fill the lime spreader with the appropriate amount of lime. Walk in a straight line, making sure to spread the lime in the same direction with each pass of the spreader to avoid a ‘checkerboard’ look to the lawn. You can also scatter lime for garden soil using a spreader.
Shovel: You can use a shovel to spread lime over the soil surface. Till or dig into the garden soil to mix the lime so it’s more readily available to your garden plants. Mix it into the soil at a depth of about 4-6 inches. Do not apply lime only to the surface, as it can take weeks to experience benefits.
Rototiller: A rototiller is a heavy-duty solution for mixing lime into the soil’s root zone. These machines help prepare soil for planting and are excellent for incorporating lime and other amendments. However, these machines may be more suitable for larger gardens.

What to Do if You Use Too Much Lime in Your Garden

You know the old saying, “You can never have too much of a good thing?” Well, you can have too much lime. Sometimes, you get overzealous with the spreader. Other times, a bag will break as you’re hauling it out to the garden, dumping lime everywhere. What should you do if you use too much lime on your lawn or garden?

First, if it’s on your lawn or another area where you can scoop it up, scoop up as much scattered lime as you can. If you’ve actually mixed it into the soil before you realized you added too much, don’t panic. There are still a few things you can do to help.

Lime raises soil pH, but the following amendments lower soil pH. If you’ve added too much lime, the following can swing the pH balance back to the acidic side:

Sulfur: Garden sulfur or elemental sulfur is one of the most effective treatments for alkaline soil. Soil bacteria feed on the sulfur and lower soil pH in the process. Spread or mix sulfur as a powder into the soil. You can often find small bags of this substance at local garden centers. Always adhere to application rates, which vary depending on your pH needs.
Peat moss: Peat moss is one of the most effective organic garden acidifiers. It’s expensive, but it works well to both lower pH and improve soil texture. You can purchase it in large bales or bags and mix it into the soil. It won’t harm plants and will improve drainage in clay soils.
Manure: Manure is a little tricky because you must use well-rotted or composted manure in the garden. Animal manure such as cow, horse, sheep, rabbit and goat manure makes a fine garden soil amendment, adding both nutrients and acidity to the soil. It can counteract excessively alkaline soils or the effects of too much lime added to the soil. You can often find free sources of composting manure from local horse stables, but be sure to let it sit and rot for a while before adding it to the soil. Under no circumstances should you ever use manure from carnivores such as dogs, cats, pigs or similar animals. Such manure can harbor harmful bacteria and parasites.
Compost: Compost isn’t strictly a soil acidifier, but it’s so good for your garden soil that we must mention it. It has a slightly acidifying effect on the soil, especially if it’s made from a higher balance of leaf matter than other garden debris.

Compost improves soil fertility and health, adds beneficial microbes and balances pH that’s slightly off if you’ve added just a little too much lime. Since you can’t overdo the compost, add as much as you want — as long as it is well-rotted and you mix it into the soil prior to planting. Well-rotted compost smells sweet and has the look of crumbled chocolate cake.

How to Know When You’ve Added Too Much Lime

It’s always best to conduct a soil test to determine problems with your soil, but several signs indicate if you’ve added too much lime. Yellow patches in your grass, weed growth of spurges and sedges and slow growing grass are tell-tale signs of over-liming.

It’s important to wait a few weeks after implementing a solution to determine whether you need additional corrective actions. Your garden will need time to adjust to the new changes, which can take between three and four weeks. In some cases, depending on the severity, you may need to wait a full growing season to see lawn improvements.

To avoid over-liming in the future, plan for regular soil tests once every year or two. Always base your decisions on the findings of your soil tests, and apply lime in smaller locations to test the reaction. Keep records of your lime application, including when and how much you administered.

Choose Garden Lime From Baker Lime

When you need to improve soil chemistry, balance pH levels and enhance your lawn’s supply of critical nutrients, turn to Baker Lime for convenient solutions. Baker Lime proudly supplies three main kinds of lime — pelletized, agricultural and powdered lime. We’ve been producing limestone for farms, lawns and gardens since 1889, and our material quality and dedication empower us to be a leading supplier. Find a location near you to discuss your lime needs with a local dealer. We look forward to serving you.