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Observations
Soil pH
If you've been working at improving your desert soil how do you know when it's all that it should be? My answer and question to that is how do your plants looks? If they look healthy and seem to be growing then your soil should be okay. If you're a real stickler for information and believe everything you read and hear then you'll end up sending your soil to a test lab so the people there can analyze your soil.

Or you might try investing in one of those electronic soil testers like I did. I purchased a battery operated rapitest® soil tester that would give me the pH and fertilizer analysis. The tool is distributed by Luster Leaf Products, Inc.

The rapitest® electronic soil tester that provides soil pH and somewhat of an idea of your soil fertility. Set for pH analysis the meter reads 7.0.

The product will zero in on the soil pH giving you a pretty good indication of your acidity, alkalinity or just rightness for the plants you grow. Somewhere between a pH of 6 and 7 the meter has "ideal" written. The soil fertility reading is a bit more ambiguous with the "Too Little", "Too Much", and "Ideal" readings. You're going to have to figure out if you need more nitrogen or phosphorus. Potassium is pretty prevalent in our desert soils.

To use the meter you have to remove two inches of soil and then mix up a bit of mud after you've removed stones and organic debris (twigs and leaves). To be more consistent the instructions suggest you mix two cups of your test soil in a clean plastic cup with two cups of distilled or de-ionized water. Compact the mud and use your cleaned meter. The "soil testing in about one minute" the package proclaimed seems based loosely on interpretation. Once you stick the tester in the mud it takes a minute. It takes more than a minute to prepare each soil sample. Here were my results from four soil samples taken from two different raised beds from my vegetable garden.

	Vegetable Bed One		Vegetable Bed Two
	Test One	Test Two	Test One	Test Two
Soil pH	6.6	6.8	7.0	7.0
Soil Fertility	High end of too little.	High end of too little.	High end of too little.	High end of too little.

The soil tests were taken at the end of the winter growing season so the high end of too little fertilizer seemed acceptable. The soil pH was ideal for the lettuce crop.

Looking for the Easy Way
Like most of us if I had my way I just want to stick the plant in the soil and watch it grow. Especially when it comes to tomatoes and bell peppers. I'm more interested in the end product than I am in the foliage or decorative value. So when the Gardener's Supply Company advertised their exclusive "grow anywhere with the self-watering patio garden" I pulled out my checkbook and ordered a stone colored (instead of the dark green) patio garden.

The first problem was where to put the thing. With its 26-inch length, 19-inch width and 10-inch height it wasn't a small planter. Once filled with soil and the bottom reservoir filled with water it's not the kind of thing you want to move. The first crop was some Merlot lettuce and a parsley plant just to see how it worked. Once the lettuce is harvested the planter will be used to grow a couple of pepper plants and the reservoir will be filled with water and fertilizer.

Gardener's Supply Company's self-watering patio garden. The hole in the bottom lets you fill the four gallon reservoir.

My biggest problem is I really don't have a suitable place to put the large planter. At $39.95 ($35 for two or more.) plus shipping costs, I'm just glad I didn't buy two.(2000)