First, we put roughly 3 grams of soil into each of the two 50 mL conical tubes we designated for our samples, weighed the tubes, and noted the mass. Next, we filled each tube with 12 mL of sterile deionized water, covered tightly, and vortexed for 1 minute at maximum speed to combine. We swirled the tubes every five minutes for 30 minutes at room temperature. Next, we rinsed the probe with deionized water before inserting it into the sample and waiting for the reading to stabilize to measure the pH. Before putting the probe in a KCl solution, we noted the pH readings and cleaned it. Lastly, we gave the TA our information so they could enter it into the class database. Once all the data was entered, we used Excel to find the mean and standard deviation and ran an unpaired t-test.

With a difference of just 0.61, the pH values that our team took from the tomato plants and peach tree were comparable. The locations' class means have a percent difference of just 1.5%, making them even closer to one another. The peach tree and tomatoes' respective standard deviations for the class data were 0.23 and 0.56. This indicates that although the tomatoes varied more, the pH values in the two places remained quite comparable. We used an unpaired t-test, assuming unequal variance, to compare the data, and the p-value was 0.592. There is no statistically significant variation in pH between the two situations because the p-value was higher than 0.05. This p value does not give statistically significant evidence that there is a true difference between the mean pH level of the peach tree soil and tomato plant soil. 

It doesn't seem that Condition 1, peach tree, and Condition 2, tomato plants, offer distinct pH values. Our group-specific data and the class's overall data values, which showed that everyone's values were comparable, give us good reason to believe this outcome. With a difference of 0.61 between our group data points and a difference of 0.12 between the class averages for the data points and a high p-value of 0.592, we are certain that the conditions do not have different pH values. In conclusion, our group is positive that the pH values we sampled were not different because the t-test p-values were significantly higher than the significance level of 0.05. This similarity in pH level could be due to the close proximity of the plants in the garden and the same weather conditions from the days preceding our sampling. 

According to Utah State University, most fruit trees typically grow in soil with a pH value of less than 8.0 (Black et al.). From our class, we know that more basic soil also tends to grow the best plants. When we examine Figure 1, we see that the highest outlier of data points almost reaches the 8.0 mark, with the average at 7.67, which lines up with our expected pH value. However, the University of Georgia claims that tomatoes typically grow best in a pH value of 6.28-6.8, while our tomato plant soil pH average was 7.79 (Slusher). Our tomato plants grow in similar soil pH as the peach tree, most likely because of their proximity and the compactness (Community Gardens). This is slightly concerning as the communal garden could be producing better tomatoes if they take steps to reduce the soil pH value in the tomato plant soil. So, while the tomato plants had a higher soil pH than sources expect, we can help the Lincoln Sharing Garden by alerting them to acidify their soil to potentially improve their tomato plant growth.