Is Barn Lime Good for Gardens?

Your soil's quality is important when growing or establishing a healthy garden. There is an assortment of products available, including lime, fertilizers and pesticides. If applied to your soil properly and under the right circumstances, barn lime helps your garden grow and maintain a good soil pH.

Barn lime is basic agricultural lime. It is also known as garden lime or dolomite lime. It is created by grinding up limestone and is sold as either a powder or pellets. Barn lime is used for a variety of agricultural purposes because it is not caustic like hydrated lime.

Lime is a mineral-based alkaline substance containing significant amounts of calcium. Applying it to garden soil increases the soil's alkalinity. Plants do not thrive if the soil is too alkaline or too acidic.

Fertilizer, which is commonly used to help plants grow, is acidic. Too much fertilizer tips the soil's pH balance too far into the acidic range. Alternating the use of lime and fertilizer in the garden creates and maintain an ideal pH balance in the soil. This ensures prime growing conditions for plants and helps the garden thrive.

In most cases, adding lime to a garden improves the soil conditions for the weeds as well as the rest of the plants. Lime is helps healthy plants grow and prevents weeds from occupying open spaces in the grass or between plants. It requires extremely high quantities of lime to significantly raise the alkalinity of the soil to the point where it harms the garden. Having too alkaline of a soil is not good for most types of plants so monitor the soil's pH and maintain the proper balance.