# sandy soil



## neldarez (Apr 10, 2011)

I've got a question for you guys....I live in washington state on the dry dry side...our soil is sand...I've grown excellent gardens for a long time in this sand but this year I'm letting it rest because I think you have to do that sometimes and also last year was not a very good garden. Here is my question....what do I need to do to improve this sand to some kind of soil? putting grass clippings etc on it is just sand with dead grass...there are no worms...I would love to nourish my garden spot but totally don't know how....thanks for your advice.


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## Iafrate (Oct 9, 2013)

Compost dude, compost


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## Tirediron (Jul 12, 2010)

Compost will break down with out worms, but you would probably have to compost in a bin, to get it started, sand is a good insulator and drainage medium, neither really conductive to composting. Well rotted manure would also be a good source of plant food.


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## txcatlady (Sep 26, 2013)

We live with sugar sand here and every year I ammend with a dump truck of mushroom compost. My garden does well. One year it apparently came straight from a horse barn and did not do well. This year the potatoes planted stayed too wet with all the rain. I lost some, but the 20 pounds I planted in straight sand were amazing! I will add more compost this winter most likely. We have been here 7 years.


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## Wellrounded (Sep 25, 2011)

Keep adding organic matter, lots and lots of organic matter. You want to build humus. The problem with sand, especially deep sand is that the humus will move down into the subsoil quite quickly and it will take an awful lot of organic matter to build a deep rich soil. You need to think in bulk. Mulch with 6 - 12 inches of organic matter every year. Alfalfa hay is wonderful to create humus. Think of feeding the soil the same way you'd feed yourself, plenty of fiber (hay/straw) and good organic nutrients (manure/liquid manure/ash/blood and bone etc). I have always tried to find the cheapest bulk organic matter in the area I've lived and then get it by the semi load. As you build humus you'll retain more moisture, it becomes easier as time goes by.

One garden I built on sand... 
I started with bales of alfalfa hay in rows onto well watered ground. Imagine a bale, a 2 foot gap, then another bale, space for a path, then repeat, make rows as long as you have room for.
Between the bales I put sheep/goat manure that had been piled up and let heat for a week or two. 
The following year I spread the then well rotted bales over the whole bed, now the width of the two bales plus the 2 foot gap. I kept adding manure etc plus alfalfa mulch over the top every year I lived there. At five years it was starting to darken and look a little more like loam not sand.

The bales kept the soil cool in summer and sheltered the young plants. The cool zone under the bales kept the worms happy ( I did have to bring them into the garden as there were very few in this dry climate) This garden was in an area that got well over 110F in summer, rainfall of about 6 inches and was the first hill the wind met after leaving the south pole (seriously) I deep watered twice a week (equivalent to 2 inches of rainfall per week) and hand watered seed and newly transplanted seedlings by hand morning and night. 

My next property was sandy as well but had a heavy clay subsoil at about 2 feet. After 7 years of gardening the soil was pretty good. Next garden had deep black heavy loam, and yes I bought it because of 1) the soil 2) the rainfall 3) the availability of cheap poop and other organic matter 4) the price . I still bought many, many semi loads of organic matter every year as I wanted a friable soil easy to plant into.

The bottom pic is the second garden, sand over clay. You can see how horrible the lawn was. It was planted onto the sand with no soil improvement. All the flower borders are planted into improved soils. The vege garden is just above this area and was where most of the work went 

The top pic is the lovely loam property I bought  You can see the new rose garden being prepared. You can see four beds with a wide road down the middle. Each of the four beds was 150 feet long and had 80 cubic yards of well rotted cow manure and rice hulls spread out and then a foot of straw over that. The poly tunnel is 20 ft x 60 ft to give you an idea of scale.


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## IlliniWarrior (Nov 30, 2010)

go find a source of manure and start working that in - cheapest base around for fortifying that soil .... you can refine your soil consisity and PH levels after that soil can't run thru a funnel anymore ....


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## ZoomZoom (Dec 18, 2009)

I'll pile on (pun intended  ) and suggest trying to get some manure.

If you have a choice, get cow manure instead of horse. Horses don't digest seeds as well so its manure will have/grow more weeds.


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## LincTex (Apr 1, 2011)

I read somewhere that ideal soil is 1/3 sand, 1/3 clay and 1/3 loam. See if you can get a little clay mixed in to slow down the sand from draining so fast. Compost, wood chips, manure all help.

Idaho and Montana raise all their spuds in sand, and it works great. Only problem is it also takes a ton of water.


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## LincTex (Apr 1, 2011)

I don't think there is a need to let sand "rest", since sand doesn't really hold any nutrients. You will need to supply nutrients each year in the form of compost. Look into Hugelkultur as well.


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## neldarez (Apr 10, 2011)

LincTex said:


> I don't think there is a need to let sand "rest", since sand doesn't really hold any nutrients. You will need to supply nutrients each year in the form of compost. Look into Hugelkultur as well.


I think it was really me that needed the rest...lol....I have always had incredible gardens, don't know what happened last year but I will just start hauling in manure..sad part is, horse manure is readily available to me but the weeds in it are terrible....As I'm getting older I'm trying to think/work smarter...don't know that it's working yet.!


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## LincTex (Apr 1, 2011)

neldarez said:


> ..sad part is, horse manure is readily available to me but the weeds in it are terrible....


1) A good, hot compost pile will kill the weed seeds.

2) The other way to kill weeds is apply the manure to the garden so the seeds can germinate, and then cultivate/till the ground to kill those weedlings.

When I was growing up we called this practice "Summer Fallow".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_fallow


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## cowboyhermit (Nov 10, 2012)

All good info. I have to agree about "rest" not necessarily being the best thing for sandy soil. While it may conserve moisture and give you a better crop the next year, that will partially be due to the fact that microbes had a whole year to turn all that organic matter into easily usable goodies.

A better alternative IMO would be extensive cover-cropping. While it may well be the easiest and cheapest on a "small" scale to haul in your organic matter, on a larger scale the only feasible method is to "Grow" your own topsoil. I think in many conditions it is also the cheapest and easiest methods.

I have seen many fields go from marginal land to above average productivity in a relatively short time. The two worst enemies to building sandy soils IME are drying out and leaching, both can be greatly diminished by cover crops or mulching regularly. Planting deep rooted, drought resistant crops are great for areas that need them, at least at first. Nitrogen fixing plants are truly soil builders.

The right combination of cover crops and scheduling for your situation can produce truly immense amounts of organic matter with very little inputs.

Ideally in most situations like yours you don't even want to have the soil exposed to sunlight for any extended duration. 

Ahh, too busy doing this stuff to put together a coherent response. :gaah:


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## Country Living (Dec 15, 2009)

One of the advantages of having backyard chickens is they poop all night long (we have poop trays under the roosts that are filled with PDZ). I've been tossing the morning cleanout of the chicken poop into my "compost pile", which is primarily chicken poop with some leaves and some grass. Since chicken litter works so well on the hay meadow I figured I'd try it on the garden I need to plant next year. Yes, I've been bad.... I need to get back on the garden bandwagon.

I think the poop needs time to break down so it's not so hot and then this whole pile will be more in the line of fertilizer instead of compost. We're also on sandy soil; but, haven't had much of a problem growing veggies - back when I did have a garden. 

Do any of you have any experience with chicken poop in a sandy soil garden? FYI, stepping in it doesn't count as experience ('cause I've had plenty of that since the birds free range during the day).


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## Tirediron (Jul 12, 2010)

neldarez said:


> I think it was really me that needed the rest...lol....I have always had incredible gardens, don't know what happened last year but I will just start hauling in manure..sad part is, horse manure is readily available to me but the weeds in it are terrible....As I'm getting older I'm trying to think/work smarter...don't know that it's working yet.!


horse manure composts hot by its nature, so it should kill off most of the weed seed in the process, and weeds also provide more compost if they don't make it to seed stage.


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## tleeh1 (Mar 13, 2013)

Being in eastern Washington, your sand is a little different from what most consider sand (desert or beach). It holds moisture a little better than most sands. Your dirt actually came from Montana hundred of thousands of years ago after the Missoula ice dam let go and flooded the entire east side of the state (several times) and basically created the Palouse and the Columbia River. It's several hundred feet deep -- a very interesting geological story. I live in 'red clay country' now and would love to get back to that kind of 'sand.'

You can and should everything to add any kind of organic material to the garden: grass clippings, leaves, straw, anything you can round up. I have a kitchen compost (plastic tub with some dirt and worms) that I maintain year-round, and sprinkle around my plants throughout the growing season. I prefer cow manure for my garden once a year, but that's not always available. Chicken works, too, but you have to let it 'cool' before using. You can compost the horse manure for a year to help get rid of the weeds. I've never tried mushroom compost, but I'll bet it works well.


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## neldarez (Apr 10, 2011)

You are the most helpful and encouraging friends a gal could ever want....thanks so much for taking the time to give me your much appreciated advice. We have some one with tons of horse manure and I'll start with that...I'll clean out the chicken house and get that poo out there too...it's 105 here tomorrow and then the Omak Stampede begins so this will probably go on hold for another week or two! thanks so much....


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## neldarez (Apr 10, 2011)

cowboyhermit said:


> All good info. I have to agree about "rest" not necessarily being the best thing for sandy soil. While it may conserve moisture and give you a better crop the next year, that will partially be due to the fact that microbes had a whole year to turn all that organic matter into easily usable goodies.
> 
> A better alternative IMO would be extensive cover-cropping. While it may well be the easiest and cheapest on a "small" scale to haul in your organic matter, on a larger scale the only feasible method is to "Grow" your own topsoil. I think in many conditions it is also the cheapest and easiest methods.
> 
> ...


I don't know what cover crops are used in my area but I'll ask around...water is an issue this year...for the 1st time ever, we just shut our yard sprinklers off 1/2 hour ago cuz they are spitting air. We have broke every record I think for steady high temps ....it got hot in June and still is......I was born here and don't remember such an extended time in the 100s...


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## LincTex (Apr 1, 2011)

neldarez said:


> water is an issue this year...for the 1st time ever, we just shut our yard sprinklers off 1/2 hour ago cuz they are spitting air. .


Did your well go dry?


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## ONEOLDCHIEF (Jan 5, 2012)

Down in NW Florida, our soil is sandy. Over the past few years I have been building our soil using oak leaves. The nice people bag them up and I drive by and pick them up so they do not end up in the land fill. It takes time to build soil up, even sandy soil, but you can do it. 
Apply six inches of leaves, till them in and then cover that with more leaves, the more the better. 
Do not put green manure on your garden, you will have weeds you have never seen before in your life and almost impossible to kill. 

I like the idea of letting the land rest. Someone really smart came up with that concept and has worked for thousands of years...

Raised beds are another option...

Good luck


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## Caribou (Aug 18, 2012)

When I was a kid I was sent out by the neighbor ladies to collect starfish for their gardens. I also remember them burying salmon carcasses. If anyone can expound on that it would be appreciated.


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## LincTex (Apr 1, 2011)

Caribou said:


> When I was a kid I was sent out by the neighbor ladies to collect starfish for their gardens. I also remember them burying salmon carcasses. If anyone can expound on that it would be appreciated.


Fish by-products have a lot of nutrients.

Native American cultures fertilized soil by burying a dead fish when doing "3 Sisters" gardening.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Sisters_(agriculture)


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## neldarez (Apr 10, 2011)

LincTex said:


> Did your well go dry?


we sure hope not, our next door neighbor is our well driller, he'll be over this evening to check our levels and pipes.


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