Rapitest Soil Test Kit for Gardens, Vegetables, Flowers and Lawns. USA designed and assembled soil tester completely, quickly and accurately measures/analyzes soil pH acidity and garden nutrients

This product was great. I have a raised garden bed and I’ve never checked the soil until I bought this product and it told me that my soil definitely had no nutrients left, so glad I ordered it and was able to get all of the nutrients it was missing!

Exactly as depicted and described.I got this to test the main nutrients in my soil (obviously) for my vegetable garden. I then proceeded to have a fun "science day" with my sister as we tested the soil. Results are quick and easy to read.I have no way to tell if the results are accurate, but it said my potash, nitrogen, phosphorous, and pH are fine and my garden has been doing great, so I assume it is telling me the truth!Pros:All of my results were easy to read. I don't know if they would be as easy to read for the lower levels of nutrients if your soil water is cloudy.Everything is easily color coded for the different tests and nutrients.The containers seal very well.The instructions are very clear.There is a reorder slip with the kit so I don't have to search for how to get refills for more tests.It comes with 10 testing capsules for each nutrient (40 capsules total).I think the design is good, however there were a few minor annoyances:The test capsules are difficult to open and I ended up spilling the powder a few times.The test containers have tiny plastic feet to make them stand easily, but those feet are smaller than the blob of plastic on their bottom from manufacturing. I need to sand off that blob for them to stand up and not topple over.Once the lids are on they fall over quite easily.Altogether, I like the product, and the annoyances in design are not a problem.If nothing else it is a great teaching tool and science experiment kit!

Works as advertised, directions are concise and clear. Has enough material do to 10 separate runs of all four included tests.

The basic kit requires you to visually compare a prepared soil sample (after adding the appropriate powder from a capsule) with a transparent color swatch on one of the containers. Frankly, I've never been good at this. The soil samples always seem too cloudy, even after letting them separate for over a day (instructions are 30 mins to 24 hours,. so I beat that). I am not able to make a good match.What I do have is the electronic meter that you can get from Rapitest. With this, you get a set of test tubes, mix the watery soil sample, add the appropriate powered to test for phosphorus, nitrogen, and potash. Then pop the test tube into the meter, press the appropriate button and the meter lights up saying that chemical is surplus, adequate, or lacking.This works much better for me than the visual match. In fact, I only got this kit to replenish the powder capsules.BTW, I also don't find the pH test provided with this kit to work all that well. For acidity/alkalinity I use a Rapitest soil meter. With this meter you stick a metal probe into the soil and simply read off the pH. Works way better and allows easy testing across different parts of the garden.I started using the Rapitest kits a few years ago and, after the indicated adjustments to the garden (this year: added sulfur to lower the pH) I'm getting a much better harvest.So, the chemical capsules are well recommended, Other products from Rapitest are well recommended. But I don't find using the color matching to work for me.

Spring is here and I thought it would be a good idea to test my lawn and garden soil for the first time before adding any fertilizers. This Rapitest kit seemed like a good idea so I bought in.The kit comes nicely packaged with four containers and matching "test pills" in orange(potash), blue(phosphorus), green(pH), and purple(Nitrogen) colors. The pills are enclosed in individual resealable plastic bags and each color has a quantity of 10. Unfortunately, my package came with nine purple pills instead of 10 so I'll be doing one less Nitrogen test.The kit also comes with a plastic dropper to add water or sample to the test container. However, it is small and almost impossible to clean since there is no way to insert any cleaning brush in the tiny hole. Your only remedy for consistent test result is to rinse it a number of times, or just use a different dropper made of glass.The test itself is relatively simple, but is a bit involved. The pH test is almost instantaneous by adding soil sample and water to recommended lines in the container. However, the rest of the three tests require a separate container to hold 1 cup of soil sample to 5 cups of water mixed well, then settled from 30 minutes to 24 hours. The mixture is then used to conduct the other tests in the same manner by adding a pill and sample in a container.I have no way to verify the correctness of the results without contacting a local authority. So, I'll skip this portion of the review.After having done the test once, this kit is going on my shelf and probably will just gather dust for the life of this product. I've decided to just return to my old ways of observing the greens and guessing what they need. I'm starting this spring with the usual pre-emergent for the lawn and compost for the planted bed.Recommended to those with the urge to know, but absolutely not a requirement. If you have a suffering lawn or plant bed, call a pro for advice.