Water very thoroughly, possibly repeatedly, because excess nitrogen "washes out" of the soil.

Jean001a, thank you for the suggestion. However the drainage is not very good, compacted clay is under the bed. Would it help to add lime?

Adding lime will not be of much help unless you have a low soil pH as well.
Good "topsoil" does not need "stuff" added to it and if the seller is adding "stuff" to what they are selling as "topsoil" that should tell the buyer to beware. Possibly mixing some high Carbon material into that soil can help a little.

Thank you, kimmsr. Could you please give an example of "high Carbon material"?

Dried leaves, sawdust, shredded paper are high carbon/low nitrogen.

Got it, thanks!

if it said topsoil then you are suppose to mix that into the soil you already have.... not use it as your sole source of soil medium.

I wouldn't have known I must mix "topsoil" into already present soil, and I'm a Master Gardener. I'd use topsoil to fill a bed, although I certainly would have been alerted by the smell that this wasn't something to use. As I see it, the gardener didn't do anything wrong. It's whomever made that topsoil using raw manure who is at fault. They likely knew it would burn plants, yet offered no guidance or advice to the gardener. He should be kicked out of the business for his actions, IMHO. In my experience, good garden supply people HELP gardeners, instead of setting them up to fail.

In both my Master Gardener and Advanced Master Gardener classes the soil class mentioned using something called "topsoil" but no definition of what that was was given and our MSU CES horticulturist is at a loss to define it even today.
The only definition of "topsoil" I can find says it is the top 4 to 6 inches of soil. What I have seen pass as "topsoil" in New England is vastly different than what passes for "topsoil" in the southwest which is different than what passes in Idaho and Wyoming.
Where I grew up we had loam, a specific soil type not very readily available consisting of 45 percent sand, 25 percent silt, 25 percent clay and 5 percent organic matter, or thereabouts. My conversations with people over the years tells me that this is what they expect "topsoil" to be and it, often, will not be that. Where I am now is Lake Michigan beach sand and even if I could find loam I probably could not afford to have enough brought in and spread, and in about 5 years I would not even find that loam since it would be well mixed in with the sand.
Forget "topsoil" and concentrate on adding organic matter to the soil, whether clay, sand, silt, gravel, or what ever else, to about 6 to 8 percent of the mix. If someone tells you to plunk down 6 inches of compost and till that into the top 6 inches of your soil to get a 50/50 mix they really do not know what they are talking about since they are not considering the total soil mix which is much more then that 6 inches. In a raised bed that 50/50 mixture would not be good anyway, as many people that have posted here have indicated.
Too much organic matter, or manure, in soil is as bad as too little. Go out in the forest and look at the soil Ma Nature provides there and you will find it is about 6 to 8 percent organic matter and usually pretty well mulched.

Kimmsr, You make a good point the "topsoil" products differ around the country, and lots of product sellers don't know what they are doing. A six inch compost layer -- good grief -- I would never put that much compost down. I think 2 inches is deep! I started my Master Gardener classes at U.Mass and finished at U. of Wisconsin. So I went from loam to clay, but I think, yes, there was a concept that "topsoil" was structured after loam, loosely, depending on the part of the country you were in. For example, micro-nutrients and minerals are lean in the soil I now have in Nevada, and I use an organic "Yum, Yum" mix specially developed for southwestern soil to replace those. However, I grew up in Michigan (SAND!) and my Father has be working the same soil for over 50 years now. He started with sand. We raised chickens and every fall would put down composted chicken manure, with other basics like composed leaves, kitchen waste, etc.). I don't know how we got along without ever doing a soil sample, but my Dad was raised on a farm, and he said he could tell how "right" the soil was by how the plants grew. After adding compost to sand for 50 years straight, he has wonderful soil. He can no longer garden as well, but my siblings and cousins have taken over the plot (more like a small farm), and are growing vegetables, and all kinds of stuff there. It's the best dirt in Crawford County. And no pesticides ever. Dad had plenty of kids who could pluck tomato horn worms, potato bugs, cabbage worms -- whatever was on the attack! He always said that anything that could kill a bug probably wasn't good to eat or good for the soil! LOL!

I have a book from school called "The Living Soil", and it describes what it is and how to achieve it. The best advice I've given is to know what's in the product you have, and how it will affect your soil.

Lake Michigan sand? MSU? You must be somewhere west of Lansing.

I don't have an Advanced Master Gardener degree, and look forward to learning more from you on these forums.

MacThayer

What I have is an Advanced Master Gardener Certificate, not a degree.