Soil of El Mirage

When I began the first vegetable garden at Dysart Elementary three years ago, I first consulted our own native El Mirage resident farmer, Dale, who used to own most of the land of El Mirage.  He gave me helpful advice about creating the best soil conditions for gardening, and we did yield the most amazing crops. 

Now that the garden is in a new location and is incorporating the soil that an older school building used to occupy for about 30 years, I am struggling with keeping the plants alive.  I have turned over the soil by hand, created furrows, watered diligently.  I am keeping the crazy weeds away and consistently battle the gophers and rabbits.  The plants do germinate and grow, but I am not seeing the abundant vegetables and melons that used to grow for me.  I know you're thinking, "But it's Arizona in the summer!!  How can anything grow?"  I found out that there are certain plants that really do enjoy this intense heat, and I have those planted in the garden.  Also, we have enjoyed an unusually "cool" summer so far, so they have had about a month of cool evenings and early mornings to sustain them.  So, that leaves the soil as the problem.  I had my doubts about it from the first.  What is the solution?

I began by mixing in steer manure into the furrows this past weekend.  Let me say, "deodorized" steer manure still smells BAD!  As I research the use of steer manure on-line, it's fascinating to see the passionate responses from gardeners about using it with vegetables.  The debates are quite interesting!!  One side feels that putting cow poop on vegetables leads to disease, and the other side feels that the humus found in steer manure is very helpful in gardening.  I have come to this conclusion: I have used it before, it worked wonders, and as long as you wash off your vegetables, it's all good. 

But this also makes me wonder about the pH levels of the soil in our garden.  Basically, pH stands for the acidity levels of the soil.  It ranges from 0 to 14, 0 being very acidic and 14 being highly basic.  Plants need the nutrients phosphorus (P), nitrogen (N), and potassium (K).  Using manure does affect the N-P-K levels of the soil, thus decreasing the pH levels of the garden.  If one needs to increase the acidity of the soil, using agricultural lime is important. 

So what's my next step?  I need to purchase a pH testing kit and figure out what's going on!  Let me know what you have found out about the soil of El Mirage.