[drew51]

Originally Posted by Tania

Tracy,

Originally Posted by Tania

Hardwood ramial wood chips will eventually increase your soil pH. Changing soil pH is a very slow process.

Cheers,
Tatiana

Even with lime, but that would do the job. they do make fast acting limes for lawns, I think it is Hydrated lime?
Wood chips take at least 2 years to even start touching the PH, and it's like you could add 55 barrels of salt to Lake Michigan, it still will taste fresh. In this case we have lime instead of salt, raised beds man!
When you increase the PH in your garden, Hydrogen will be pulled from surrounding soil back into your garden, good luck! It's not as bad as my example, hydrogen moves slowly, but it's like metal to a magnet, it will be attracted to the bare spot. Every year you will have to fight the PH issue. Hopefully your water is alkaline, most places it is.
Here I fight to lower the PH every year, but it's at a good point, 6.5 to start. I could live with that. Except for blueberries.
Certain leaves can lower PH like Oak.

Luckily feeder roots are in the top few inches of soil, so if you build it up with enough compost, you should be OK.
I just prefer 12 to 18 inches to start (raised bed).