Well, even if they are perfectly accurate, finding and correcting the gross errors is still worth doing right?

So check this out: I had an old pallet in the garden that I was using to set pots and tools and things on so they wouldn't be down in the dirt, and it turns out the underside of the thing was a mega city of ants! Not as many in my garden now that I've pulled that out. I also used liquid ant baits, and power washed with the hose on a regular basis. They aren't /gone/ but they are under control again. I'm thinking about putting out dry borax and sugar in little covered containers to see if that does the job with less cost. I wonder how far ants will go to get a meal? Are they coming all the way from that house or just living on some old wood closer to your garden?

Andy, that video is a hoot! Not sure if I'm going to try the vacuum cleaner bag thing, but I have put out borax and sugar both in the form of commercial liquid ant bait and now I will put it out in dry form as well. I'm trying to find something to put the dry stuff in that has a lid so it won't get all wet when I water or it rains. Thanks so much for sharing that! The liquid ant bait seems to be reducing the ant population. I hate to kill the little beggars, but they can't be destroying my crops. I'm planning to plant some of the flowers you indicated in the future to see if that helps keep them away. I also noticed that when I really deep water the raised beds, it seems to flood them out and they abandon ship, carrying their babies. I'm sure that doesn't help the population, so I'm doing it more often now.

As a friend here pointed out, it might be good to actually test the soil to see what it needs before amending it, huh? LOL... I've been just tossing on the compost and hoping for the best. But somehow (and this just shows how twisted my mind is) it seems like cheating to actually test the soil and amend it accordingly... that just makes /way/ too much sense! Any recomendations on a specific testing kit?  Any idea why I'm resisting the idea? Or to but that in a more reasonable qustion, any reason NOT to test the soil?

Some friends from a facebook group pointed me to this: http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/publications/tomatoproblemsolver/leaf/phos.html which looks pretty close to what I have. The tomatoes are in pots on concrete and it has been unusually cold this year so although they get lots of sun, I'm thinking they could have cold roots. Hopefully the phosphorus from the bone meal will help, but I'm wondering if I should wrap the pots in plastic to try to raise the soil temperature... hate to use plastic...