I’m still thinking about the large mossy patches in the back garden. Could it be because the soil is more acidic there? The soil there is definitely different than in front of the house, much sandier and less full of heavy clay.

We should have some pH indicator strips somewhere, and even an electronic gadget to measure acidity, for the pool. But we seem to have put those away in such a good place that we can’t find them any more, even after searching through the kitchen, the laundry room/pantry/mud room, and the basement shelves.

We could buy new ones (and will have to, anyway, for the pool) but I wanted some answers today, now! Instead of shopping, we did home chemistry. Dug up soil samples, mixed them with water, and then tested half of each sample with white vinegar and the other half with baking soda.

The results were very boring. No fizzing anywhere. So I guess the soil is neutral. It is of course also possible that our chemistry experiment was too crude – perhaps we should have taken more of something, or mixed it better… but whatever, it’s not really that important.

But chemistry that doesn’t go fizz and bang and change colours is very dissatisfying. When we were done with the testing, Adrian got to pour the vinegar-mixed sample onto the bicarbonate sample to at least get some proper fizzing out of it. Much better!

In the afternoon we planted more strawberry seedlings. That is, Ingrid planted strawberry seedlings, while Adrian planted my hand tools (in neat, straight rows and at equal distances and at the same depth!) and I took photos.

We now have one box with older plants of either Honeoye or Zephyr (the sign says Zephyr but I thought we had Honeoye there) and three plants with this year’s seedlings: Polka, Florence and Senga Sengana.