Growing in sand, zone 4?

Hoosier_Daddy · March 24, 2015

At our weekend lake home the soil isn't soil. It is pretty much fine sand and some mixed in rock and gravel hauled in as fill. It drains really well but as far as nutrients, there isn't much. A few years ago I tried an experiment growing tomatoes by adding compost, not enough top soil and some mineral amendments to the sand. Plants grew but not so good.

This year I was thinking about trying again and figured for each tomato plant I'll dig out the sand/gravel and pour in a large bag of topsoil, compost and probably a fertilizer only because in Northern Michigan I do not expect bagged topsoil to have much nutrients going for it.

1. What fertilizer, if any, would you recommend?
2. What other soil amendments would you recommend?

March 24, 2015	#1
Hoosier_Daddy Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Feb 2015 Location: SE Michigan Posts: 11	Growing in sand, zone 4? At our weekend lake home the soil isn't soil. It is pretty much fine sand and some mixed in rock and gravel hauled in as fill. It drains really well but as far as nutrients, there isn't much. A few years ago I tried an experiment growing tomatoes by adding compost, not enough top soil and some mineral amendments to the sand. Plants grew but not so good. This year I was thinking about trying again and figured for each tomato plant I'll dig out the sand/gravel and pour in a large bag of topsoil, compost and probably a fertilizer only because in Northern Michigan I do not expect bagged topsoil to have much nutrients going for it. 1. What fertilizer, if any, would you recommend? 2. What other soil amendments would you recommend?