Worms or more importantly a lack of worms.

I've just googled it to check I wasn't telling fibs.

I looked at multiple articles. Best I could find is that in the UK, clay soil is usually pH 7.5 to 10, which would make it neutral to alkaline.

I also googled what pH causes skin irritation. It turns out the answer to that is far less clear as it depends on other properties of the substance, but apparently lemon juice is pH 2, so maybe when my science teacher back in my school days told as never to touch anything lower than pH 4, he might have been offering life advice rather than chemistry instruction

 

Must admit my soil is clay based and it tends to be neutral.

 

Everything I Google suggests neutral but the book says "Clay soils tend to be acidic." ( Garden Soil pH Testing and Amending ) and that was what I was quoting. My garden is definitely clay and acidic.

 

Was the test kit made in China by any chance?

I bought a floodlight for night time mountain biking. It has 12000 Chinese lumens output. That's about 1200 of everyone else's lumens.

 

The company (Botaniworld LLC) and paperwork are from Massachusetts. Test strips and the bottle could be from anywhere.