I'm new to gardening and my first venture was to make a few 5x5 beds that are raised about six inches above the ground, which is hard red clay. The beds are filled with 60% topsoil, 30% composted manure, and 10% peat moss, we got this idea from the Square Foot Garden book. We planted spinach and carrots, both of which sprouted in a fairly reasonable time, but then we noticed that our broccoli and kale had not germinated at all after about two weeks.

We went to the garden store and got a Burpee soil test kit, the one with the little colored pill capsules, and it everything turned out fine except for the nitrogen. The color chart on the package ranges the nitrogen content from pale pink to almost red, but the water in our vial was nearly clear.

In an attempt to balance the nitrogen in the soil we got a 5-1-1 fish emulsion and used two tablespoons per gallon of water dilution on all of the soil and then watered it for the better part of the afternoon. This was yesterday.

Today we got another test kit and once again the nitrogen is almost clear, indicating that there is essentially no nitrogen in our soil.

Do we just need to wait it out and test again after the fish emulsion has had more time to amend the soil, or are we doing something wrong with the tests? Or is it possible that there is some other problem here?

Thank you!