Amatuer Question Regarding Ph Testing

I am about to go buy a pH meter. My question is that am I supposed to test the soil, or the water in my watering can.
I know that I should know this already and honestly I've read countless threads on pH testing and I still haven't been able to ascertain what I do with my meter when I get it. Thanks in advance everyone! Roll it up has been great to me and I plan to pay it forward once I become an experienced grower!

You can either test the water before you put it in the pot, test the runoff of the soil, or test the soil itself. Up to you really, I test the water and runoff. If you're buying a probe then you can test the soil as well.

Don't trust them soil ph testers, get at minimum a water ph pen, that way you know exactly what the ph of the water that you are using.

Testing the runoff is a completely inaccurate way of finding out what your soils ph is

I does give you an idea of what's going on w/in the soil chemistry, though certainly not a lock on what the actual pH is w/in the medium.

true, but imo the soils ph is the most important ph of ph's you have to worry about lol.. I went thru a stint having major problems in promix, couldn't figure out for the life of me wtf was going on. Come to find out after time peat breaks down and makes soil very acidic which was causing mag lockouts... simple solution... dolomite lime. Plus alot of foods are ph'd low to keep a longer shelf life.

So, it's probably best to test the soil itself? Would the best time to do that be immediately after watering? Thanks so much!

I bought a soil tester from Home depot and it wouldn't read shit with dry soil.. Honestly I don't 100% trust those meters but it won't hurt to give it a shot. From now on before you use your soil just add some lime to it and that's one less worry for your melon

test the water going in, and although the run off can be considered inaccurate it is still a good reference. Test the run off water with your pen after and see where it is. I put in my water with our without solution at about 6.5-6.7 depending one how lazy i get with the up/down....

if you tested the soil and not the water before your going to be fucked because you cant just auto correct it.

You need to test the water. Watering will eventually control the soil's ph...test the run off tho, if you put in 6.5 and runoff is 5.5 put in like 7.5 next time and balance it out.

1st test water and than test runoff and remember to ph the water after you put the nutes in when feeding!