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.

Arrived in great shape. The instructions are clear and it's easy to use. Matching the test results to the color scale charts was easy to see and understand. I had no problems with my test. I primarily used the kit to check the PH levels in a large bed, about 20x15 feet, and found slightly different results in different parts of the bed, which was good to know. Next time I want to check soil in an area I'm working in, I will buy this test kit. I recommend it as a good, quick, and easy-to-use kit. It doesn't replace or equal a State/University Agriculture department test for large projects, but it's great for getting a good reading of the soil condition for new plantings.

Work as you would expect them to and thy are very simple to use. No negatives at all. Don’t know if they are accurate or not, but they work as described. Anxious to see if garden improves this season after using them. Definitely worth a shot.

Great product

I like that this kit did provide the needed information I needed about the soil for my sweet potato patch. The test procedure was simple enough and the results easy to determine. The reason I am not giving it 5 stars is because I haven't found out how to purchase refills for the essential capsules needed for each test. Furthermore, I find the product description a little misleading (perhaps unintentionally) because it states it's enough for 20 tests. They DON'T mean you can test for Nitrogen, or the PH, 20 times. No, what they provide is 5 capsules for each type of test. So you can only test for one element 5 times. That wouldn't bother me if Amazon listed refills next to the same product. I couldn't find refills at all on Amazon, or on the manufacturers website. Does that mean you have to buy the entire kit after only 5 tests forany one element? That would be a huge wasteof plastic for the environment. If you have more than one garden bed, 5 tests wouldn't last long, especially if you want to retest after soil corrections. I will update this review if I can find refills. I have emailed the company directly. Another reason I substacted a star is because the tiny gel capsules are hard to open and pour/aim the contents into a tiny 1/2" opening. The test would be invalid if you missed and some of the contents spilled outside the reservoir. A shame when you only would ha4 more capsules to use!

easy to use

Look - I should have done this 8 years ago. Nope. I fell for the marketing - the four applications a year of the recommended seasonal product. And every year my lawn would look horrible around August or September. In hindsight a wise soil chemist could have likely named the issue - deficiencies in crucial nutirents and a pH problem - just by looking at the weeds in the lawn. I am not a soil chemist. Other than the blonde in the front row of freshman chemistry which was only offered at 7.30am I found most of the class boring. Uninteresting. Incomprehensible. I would have flunked if it were not for her being assigned my lab section and giving me a reason to attend a 2.30pm Friday lab. While her name is long forgotten to the nearly three decades since that class, two things I did not forget: the way she looked at me with utter disgust one of the many times I failed to offer an even halfway compentent response to question, and the importance of following directions in chemistry experiments in order to obtain accurate results. Not being a soil chemist I did the test - on two different areas of my 3,000 square foot lawn. And what I found was that despite my poor attempts at regular lime applications the pH was 5.5. And my occasional and relatively inconsistent application of whatever fertilizer was both in season and on sale left me with a complete and utter deficiency in Nitrogen and Potassium (the N and the P of the N-P-K number). Which - as any soil chemist will tell you - results in the perfect growing conditions for goosegrass and violets - two realtively common weeds that are a regular sight in my lawn. In conclusion - think of this handy soil test as an insurance policy against applications of the wrong fertilizer - or in this case - insurance against wasting money applying fertilizer when the pH is 5.5. And oh yeah - perhaps I should do something about my longstanding policy of being utterly ignorant about chemistry.

this test may work for some... at least you might think so. by the good reviews, obviously some people have found it to work. i am sure there are certain times that it is correct... just like the weatherman sometimes tells you when it will rain. with only a 50:50 chance of being right, or wrong, i am sure that some people get the correct test results. yet how many others dont. i meticulously performed these tests on different soils with very very different results. i am suspicious of some of the capsules for being bad since the results varied so much. some of the nitrogen capsules had no effect... even when i added nitrogen to the sample. clearly there are problems here. it would have been nice to get just a rough idea what i am dealing with. but after all the labor and time to try this form of testing, i realized it would be much better to have it tested in a lab... or not at all. it seems foolish to altar your soil off a home test. these results may make you feel good if you are lucky enough to get the hues to compare in the correct range. but thats not really what this should be about. additionally, it is tricky to use. i smirked at other reviews acting as if it was difficult. only by doing the test did i realize they were right. for instance, the tiny test chambers are very thin with a rounded base. this makes it very easy to tip. very easy. to make it worse, there is a small hole, about 1/4" square, that you have to pour the capsule into. picture opening/pulling apart this capsule, trying not to let the contents fall out of either half of the capsule, then dumping both sides into this small hole...without touching the container (as any touch will make it tip). you could practically knock these over by breathing too close. this might be a fun little science project for kids. the ph test will show some color, but even then, its only accurate to 1+-, so chances are, you already know your soil isnt battery acid. the results do not give you enough information to accurately adjust the soil. it takes quite awhile to go dig the samples correctly, prepare them, mix them w distilled water, shake, let them settle (over a day if you have clay in your soil), use a dropper to carefully fill 8 chambers (for each soil to test) just right, shake, wait, try to compare hues. after a couple days, and with a couple hours of labor, you may, or may not get results. the degree of accuracy, at best, is questionable. for instance, if you do everything perfect, then you read the results as either 0 of the mineral, 1, 2, 3, or 4. thats it. and you may have a hard time decideding if the results are actually 2 or 4. kind of 50:50 in my opinion.

This is my first time using a product like this. I have a small garden and it wasn't producing as much as it did in the past so I thought I would see if the soil needed additives, also called amendments. This test was somewhat easy after I got the hang of it, you have to really read the instructions as one test is slightly different than the other tests. The 20 tests turns out to be really just 5, you use all 4 testing units, which requires one of each of the capsules mixed with water and soil. I don't know why you would just test for 1 of the 4 components, common sense says you test for all 4 each time you test. All in all an easy test once you get the hang of it. I found that getting the small capsules open was a problem until I took a small sharp knife, (I used an X-Acto) to just cut the outer shell so it would open easier and I opened it over a piece of paper in case I spilled any. As with any test that uses color as the basis of degrees of component, you have to interpret the colors on the plastic tester. I would up holding mine up to a window that had good north light so it wasn't too bright and did my best to interpret the results. This was far cheaper than buying a professional test and sending it away, but I don't know if the results were better or worse. Time will tell as I amended my soils and planted some herbs. You need to know what you're going to plant in an area to make this work as different types of plants require different types of soils. I deducted 1 star for 2 reasons, first it seemed like there would be 20 different tests when instead it is a 4 part test you run so there are really only 5. And the instructions are not the easiest to follow in the beginning. Whether this is better than a professional test I don't know.