I get it, I get it; if you’re plagued by gardening woes, it can be tempting to turn to any promising hacks you can find. From tapping your tomatoes to growing naturally pest-repellant plants, there are some genuinely handy tricks you can pick up along the way.
Unfortunately, though, it seems that a viral lemon water hack isn’t one of them.
The trick suggests that lemon water, which is acidic, will help to balance out the pH of overly alkaline soils. Soils that are too alkaline can affect plants’ growth, leaving them weedy and underdeveloped.
While the logic behind diluting some lemon juice in water and pouring it onto alkaline soil to lower the pH makes a sort of sense, in practice, it might actually damage your plants.
You can burn your plants with the trick
Not only do you likely not know exactly how alkaline your soil is, but you also probably don’t know how acidic any given lemon is. That makes it very, very easy to overly acidify an alkaline soil ― and the process can ‘burn’ the plants, or create nutrient deficiencies in the soil.
This can cause your plants to look yellow or ‘splotchy’, have cupped leaves, or appear scorched. It can also affect their ability to absorb all-important nutrients, stunt their growth, or even kill them.
If you are going to attempt to make your soil less alkaline, the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) warns that “Before adding any acidifying materials you need to check your soil pH to see how much (if any) you need to add.”
If you have checked your soil, there are better ways to acidify it
Don’t get me wrong ― some gardeners do actually need to acidify their soil. But neither lemon juice, which can burn your plants, nor uncomposted lemon peels (which do nothing except attract pests) are likely to help.
Once you’ve measured your soil’s pH and know exactly what it needs to thrive, the RHS recommends you sprinkle a calculated amount of sulphur on your soil that’s been personalised to your specific garden.
You might want to apply it ASAP or wait until Spring to get sprinkling, though, because the earlier you place it in the soil before planting, the better. Sulphur and other soil additions take less well the closer they’re planted to winter.
Whatever you do, though, keep that lemon away from your lawn...