pine mulch question

Hi

I have a question on mulch. We chipped up a bunch of branches that are pine, fir and cedar wood and brought it home to use as mulch. My question is, would this be high acidic and not good for my flower beds?
I have about 6 32 gallon garbage cans full of the stuff, but I am hesitant to dump it on my flower beds.
is there a way to test it to see what the alkalinity is?

Do you know what your soil pH is? I think mostly our soil here is on the alkaline side, so I'd be surprised if you even got your pH down to neutral with your mulch, or if you're around neutral it might make it very slightly acidic, but I doubt if it's anything to worry about unless you're growing plants that require alkaline soil (those aren't as common as acid lovers, so chances are whatever you're growing will be just fine). If your wood chips aren't composted though, they can take some nitrogen away from the soil as they decompose, I've read differing opinions on whether it reduces nitrogen to the point where you ought to worry about it or not, but if that's something you're worried about you might try composting them a bit first before putting them in the garden.

they havent composted down at all yet. we just chipped them up this weekend when we were at the cabin, then drug all that mulch back home with us! lol!
I wish I would have thought about it while we were chipping...we could have chipped them up separately and it wouldnt be an issue now :o)

Is there a cheap way to test my current soil? and the mulch?

There's no way to test the mulch (and really no reason you need to), mulching your garden beds with things like pine mulch that are a little acidic is not going to be enough to change your soil pH by an amount that would cause problems unless you're growing lime-loving plants and your soil is already borderline too acidic for them. Even if you used it as an amendment and dug it into the soil I'm not sure how big of a pH drop you'd see. For your soil, you can buy pH test kits at Home Depot, garden centers, etc...they're not super accurate but they can give you a rough idea. If you want to know for real what your pH is, there are labs you can send it to for testing. In my opinion, the only thing you need to maybe be concerned about is the nitrogen depletion issue...I've never had the opportunity to use completely raw wood chips for gardening so I've never researched this at all, I just know on here I've seen some people post saying that it's something to think about, and others say it doesn't deplete nitrogen enough to worry about. But again since you're just mulching with it rather than digging it into the soil my best guess would be the nitrogen thing won't be an issue for you either.

nitrogen can be replaced too right? isnt that the 'green' stuff in compost?

Yes, once it breaks down at least, or you can add nitrogen in the form of fertilizer. Like I said though if you're just mulching with it, unless your soil was really low on nitrogen in the first place I really don't think you'll see too much of an issue. And if you have plants that are heavy feeders and need lots of nitrogen, just give them a pinch of fertilizer to make up for it and they'll be just fine.