10 Advantages of Sand In Garden Soil That You Probably Don’t Know

In my earlier article, I have discussed different types of soil and their characteristics. This post is just a continuation of the earlier one. If you haven’t read that yet. Go read the article first. In this article, I am going to discuss some of the amazing benefits of having sandy soil.

What is Sand:

Sand is a naturally occurring granular material composed of finely divided rock and mineral particles. Depending on where you live, the sand will vary in texture and color.

Sand is composed of silica, calcium carbonate, and other minerals. It does not hold water and has large spaces between the particles which allow air to pass through more freely. Sand is a subset of soil and has benefits in its own right.

What is Sandy Soil?

Sandy soil refers to the soil where the percentage of large-sized (over 1/20 mm in diameter) particles is quite high. They have a large amount of sand in them.

Generally, people consider sandy soil as inferior quality soil. But having sand in your soil will help you in many ways.

People unknowingly, consider sandy soil as inferior quality soil. But consider yourself lucky if you have enough sand in your soil. Click To Tweet

Advantages of Sand in Soils:

Sand can really increase the overall health of your landscape and gardens. It plays a very important role in the nature of the soil. You can use sand in numerous ways in your garden. Here are some of the advantages of sand in garden soils:

1. A sandy soil heats up fairly faster and maintains a higher temperature than other types of soil. So it speeds up the germination process during the spring months.
2. Fertilizers act more quickly in the soil if the amount of sand is higher.
3. Having sand in the soil makes tilling a fairly easy job. You can start tilling early in springs and continue later in the fall. Tilling will also be cheaper than in other types of soil.
4. Sand helps in making clay soils more porous. Clay soils have very poor drainage and are not ideal for plant growth. Once you add sand to the clay soil, it opens up soil particles and allows excess water to drain through.
5. Sand helps in proper airflow in garden soil. Billions of soil microbes like bacteria, fungi, protozoa, etc live in the soil. And they assist in plant growth by converting organic matter into plants nutrients. Now, these soil microbes need oxygen for survival. When your soil has enough sand in it, the soil becomes conducive to airflow and ideal for soil microbes.
6. Because the sand is easy to move around, transplanting a plant into sandy soil is a far easy job.
7. You can grow quite a few different types of veggies in sandy soil. Many vegetables and flowering plants do quite well in sandy soil. The root crops are smoother, better formed and have fewer fibrous roots. Crops also need lesser work for cleaning and storing as sand don’t stick to each other as much as clay or other soil.
8. Sandy soil does not become very hard and compact, especially when the ground is wet, and are easy to dig up. So harvesting root crops and removings weeds becomes an easy job to do.
9. Sand lends itself to irrigation because the water is quickly absorbed.
10. You can use sand for repairing gardens and lawns if certain parts die out. Many landscape designs also features a sand trap area for recreational purposes.

Always use sand that is free of salt. If your sand has salt in it, it will disturb the plants and soil life in general. Salt-free sand is easy to find though, you can buy them online or from your local garden centers.

Disadvantages of sand in the soil:

But there are also some problems associated with sand and sandy soil. The main concerns for sandy soil are

It Dries out fast

• Sandy soil can not retain moisture well, So you have to water your plants more frequently than you generally do in other types of soil.

Sands Do Not Have Enough Nutrients

• Nutrients leach out very quickly from sandy soil, so if your soil has more sand this means the need for fertilization will be more or else your plants will become undernourished.

Sandy soil Can become Very Acidic

• Sandy soil is often quite acidic. So you can either grow plants that love the acidic environments or amend the pH to make it less acidic for growing plants.

How to Amend Sandy Soil:

If you find your garden soil has too much sand for your liking and you want to amend the soil. We have a detailed article on how to improve the quality of the sandy soil but in a nutshell here is a list of things you can do.

1. Apply Organic materials such as compost and mulch to the soil.
2. Add Nitrogen to the soil.
3. Keep adding Moisture to the soil
4. Grow cover crops

Read this post for more details.

Tips for Using Sand in your Garden:

As you can see, if you have sandy soil in your garden, it is not a bad thing. But sandy soil has both advantages as well as disadvantages. So, using sand in your garden becomes a bit tricky.

 Buy Ultra Grass Seed Mix Ideal for sandy soil

Here are some tips for you to help you make the most of your sandy soil:

• Use organic matters like garden compost, manure etc to increase your soil’s moisture retention capacity.
• Increase your watering frequency, especially during dry periods. This will help you manage the rapid drainage of sand.
• Use drought-tolerant plants. They do great in dry sandy climates.

What do you think about this article? Please share your comments below.