Vinegar in our well water? A Tale of pH

Hello again!
I am constantly monitoring and assessing the use of our water, not only for quantity but quality. This is to preserve the health of our animals, as well as our soil. We have a little bit of a sodium issue, so in this episode we talk about that a bit.
Secondly, we look at using acetic acid (vinegar) as a natural modifier for water pH and to help with calcium carbonate scaling. Let's learn about a few things, what we can do, and why not to panic when water parameters seems a bit wild.
Remember to always purify and filter your water. For things like sodium, you may want to distill or use reverse osmosis. Always consult an actual chemist or professional (because I'm neither of those) =)
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/ simple_earth
#simpleearth #selfsufficiency #homestead #offgrid

[@SuerteDelMolinoFarm]

Mmm. Maybe we should start growing our own grapes to make our own vinegar. Good luck.

[@SimpleEarthSelfReliance]

Now you're talking. But I think apples would be easier for ACV, maybe? Lekker dag. Have a good one.

[@lesliebrannon2191]

@@SimpleEarthSelfReliance Yes some home made cider. Something to look forward too.

[@insAneTunA]

You are doing it accurate, so that's good. I have used vinegar in the past in an attempt to change the PH from my pond. But that didn't end well. For starters, I didn't know what I was doing, and I was not accurate at all. And for a pond it makes no sense to lower the PH with a substance because then you are only fighting the symptoms. It is a different situation. But what is similar is that you have to be very careful with vinegar, and indeed you need to take measurements as accurate as you can afford, and you need to know exactly what you are doing.
Other possible solutions are peat, it is a slow working cure but it does have a relative long lasting effect compared to chemicals such as vinegar, and plants and micro organisms love the peat as well. But on the downside, it is more expensive and not always available because some countries banned the use of peat because of environmental reasons.
You can also purposely create slightly acidic compost, and once you have that system going reliably you can continuously use that to top dress the soil, but that is also a long term strategy. Normally the information that you can find about making compost tells you how not to let the compost become acidic. Or what you should do to prevent that. So it seems to me that if you do the opposite as what the information recommends then it shouldn't be too hard to create acidic compost.
The benefit from the slightly acidic compost is that you are providing acid to the soil, but also micro organisms who are already used to that acidic environment, so they get a running start if you will. Instead of shocking the existing micro organisms in the soil. Half a point PH change is pretty shocking for at least some of the organisms, maybe not all, and what won't survive initially will grow back, but it is a fairly drastic cure, lets put it like that. The compost and peat on the other hand slowly release the acids. It is more gentle for the existing micro organisms, but you also add more micro organisms who are already used to it. But it requires a lot more steps and patience and ingenuity and resources from the farmer to set it up.
As always thanks for sharing. 👍

[@SimpleEarthSelfReliance]

Great ideas. We all learn, haha. I also did some dumb things to our pond at some point (on the first homestead). I like the acidic compost idea. Or making acidic liquid fertilizer to inject through the drippers (to clean them out). Let's hope I don't create an accidental black hole

[@insAneTunA]

@@SimpleEarthSelfReliance I love this stuff, I have no other more fitting words for it. I just love it. Most of the things that I watch I can't do myself. But I still love it.

[@SimpleEarthSelfReliance]

I still have your ideas on paper and will try to be your test rabbit one day. Thanks for the chat. Always good!

[@insAneTunA]

@@SimpleEarthSelfReliance hahaha Wonderful. 👍

[@louisefourie5846]

Ek haal my hoed af vir jul harde werk. Ons het ook van niks begin, bloekombos gekoop. Is dit n gesukkel. Dit vergiftig die grond langdurig sodat net hulle daar wil groei. Byt vas en wees sterk.

[@SimpleEarthSelfReliance]

Sjoe dit klink soos n avontuur met baie hand blase. Maar die lekker ding is, ná al daai grond herstel het jy ex-woud grond. Sal graag wil sien hoe julle vorder. Sterkte vir jou ook.