I'm a huge fan of composted manure, myself. I think it will be a great addition. "Regular" compost, made from a variety of ingredients, is also excellent. If you're not composting, start!

The usual advice for sandy soil is to add organic matter, organic matter, and more organic matter. It will help a lot with moisture retention while also adding valuable nutrients.

As for purchasing topsoil...I'm not opposed to this myself, and I have done it in specific situations (usually as an addition to a raised bed), but what gets sold as "topsoil" varies a lot, so it might or might not be worth it to do so. You might find that your money and labor are better spent elsewhere.

Another thing I might consider, though I know that many here will be opposed to the idea, is working in some peat. The things I like about it are that it's really cheap per cubic foot, it breaks down slowly, and it helps a lot with water retention. HOWEVER, it has some downsides, such as being quite acidic (I also add lime when I use peat), it won't add any nutrients to the soil, and some people have concerns about how renewable it is. If I were going to use peat, I would use it just one time, as a means of quickly and relatively cheaply improving your water retention situation, while also adding more nutrient-laden organic matter every year (or multiple times per year) in a longer-term plan to improve your soil.

Are you buying your composted manure at a garden store, or are you getting it for free from a farm? With a bit of asking around, you can often find free sources of organic matter, and when you need a lot of it, year after year, that's a fine thing indeed.

Thank-you For the tips. I do have a free source for horse manure but I think its probably to fresh? I started making a pile about 2 months ago.

In the fall can you get other people's leaves? If they are shredded then less blow away. makes great mulch for sandy soil!!

Obviously organic matter is needed in goodly amounts. I agree with leira that peat moss would give your sandy soil some foundation to hold both organic matter and moisture.

I have used a lot of local peat moss along with sand and all mixed well with good top soil...plus lots of organic matter...love, love it.

Yeah, I wouldn't use fresh horse manure. You can use rabbit manure fresh, but almost no other ones.

I don't know how long you'd need to age it, but it's certainly so that if it still resembles manure, it's probably too fresh. You could add some leaves to it and get it composting, perhaps, and that might speed up the process.

leira, is right on OM. You can compost horse manure/ any manure with browns. If every thing is shredded then you could have compost in 2 weeks to a month. You can cut green manure in the soil & plant in 90-120 days.
Compost that you make is best. You could use coir, while you are waiting for the compost to cool or the cut in manure to decay/ break down.
Coir is the coconut outer layer & is sold in bricks at pet stores & on line. Shop around for the best price.
Why coir, it is slow to rot & holds 8-9 times it's dry weight in water.

corrected for NOP guidelines...

"You can cut green manure in the soil & plant harvest in 90-120 days."

...and that depends upon the food having direct contact with the soil or not.

Lloyd

Lloyd, I wouldn't worry about harvesting in 90-120 days after working in manure, from a pathogen perspective, but I would worry about how it might affect the plants if you apply it at the right times to achieve this. [Actually, I'm just not really concerned about pathogens from manures at all...shhhh, don't tell kimmsr.]

I worry about fresh manure, or anything with a high nitrogen content, impeding germination if you tried to direct-seed too soon after working it into the soil, and I worry about it "burning" the plants if you aren't careful about how you apply it post-germination.

I don't know how long you'd need to wait before direct-seeding. My great-grand-aunt, with whom I spent many childhood years, put fresh horse manure on the fields in the Fall, let it sit under the snow all Winter, and plowed it under in the Spring, so I guess that's my personal standard for "long enough." Less time might work as well, depending on the weather and other factors, but I don't have a good sense for it.

Careful side-dressing of existing plants could probably be done without harm to them, but I think "careful" is key. Put it too close, and you'll do more harm than good.

[Yes, it's true, I was taught to garden, in part, by someone who was born in the 1800s...and sometimes I think it shows.]

Creating a better soil is really simple, add organic matter. In sand organic matter fills in the pore spaces so both nutrients and moisture are held where plant roots grow and in clay organic matter seperates those soil particles and changes the soil particles so both nutrients and moisture are made more available to the plants roots that can now move around in the soil much easier.
All that is needed for better soil is organic matter.
If a green manure (that is a vegetative crop grown to provide nutrients, although it is similar to a cover crop) crop is grown and then tilled in there should be several weeks between tilling that in and planting since the soil bacteria may be busy digesting that crop and will not feed what you want to grow, but there is no reason to wait 90 to 120 days after tilling in a green manure crop, as you should after applying animal manures.

All that is needed for better soil is organic matter.

That may be true if needed micro and trace elements are already there.

I assumed jolj meant animal manures as that is what was being discussed, if this is not what he meant then my bad for not clarifying exactly what he meant.

Lloyd

bama647 you said "after a rain there is pure sand on the surface" leads me to believe that there is no mulch on top of the soil.
If you mulch heavily, along with the soil improvements, I think you'll find a big difference in the amount of watering you'll have to do.
Also during the season the soil food web will incorporate that mulch and make your soil even richer.
It's worked wonders on my Long Island sandy soil. I've probably cut my watering by half at least.
good luck

Thank-you everyone I appreciate your help. I believe it will make a huge difference. So glad I have access to this site!

To have a good, active Soil Food Web soil needs adequate levels of organic matter, since that is what the soil microbes feed on. So the question is does a good soil need those microbes first or the organic matter which will feed the soil microbes, provide the environment they need to live, first?

Do you live in the Carolina sandhills like I do? Your soil sounds SOOOOOO familiar. :-D

After 3 years of laying down HEAVY layers of mulch -- mainly leaves and grass clippings -- with a resort to pine straw when I run out of leaves -- and putting compost in ever planting hole/trench I am starting to see some improvement in soil quality.

Beware of buying "topsoil". If its not being trucked in from an area with different geology you'll probably get the exact same thing you've already got. DH bought material to fill 3 raised beds that was supposed to be 50% topsoil and 50% compost. The reality was a mix of the exact, same, worthless sand we already had with well-aged wood-chip mulch.

Be sure to get your soil tested (free or inexpensive via the county cooperative/ag extension), so that you know what mineral deficiencies you have to work with.

As a side note, I'm finding it helpful to plant my individual plants and my "hills" in shallow pits (dug out twice as deep as necessary and filled with compost beneath the actual planting soil). Likewise, I made trenches to plant the things that go in rows.

I am going to stray from the norm here a little. I used to live where my garden soil started out sandy. I had black clay soil brought in and thoroughly mixed it. It transformed my garden overnight! Held water and nutrients much better! If you can get it, I strongly recommend it for sandy soil.

Here is a link that might be useful: Building Up Soil

Having a source for horse manure is all you need to turn things around. My gal has horses and she brings me bags of the stable bedding / manure. I have found that this stuff is excellent for composting because the manure is great for the greens and the wood shavings bedding is the browns.

I often do have leaves to shred with it but not always. The stable bedding will heat up fine and compost without any additives. I do send the stable bedding through the shredder which helps it break down faster then it otherwise might.

I do put a lot of labor into it with turning and rehydrating but I get usable compost from it in as little time as a month. I put it through three heat cycles turning and re-mixing between each, and then put it aside for another week or two to finish. At this point the stuff is full of worms so that tells me it has been burned and churned enough to be put to use without worries about burning roots.

This stuff makes an excellent feeding mulch. I also use it as a large percentage of my container soils. I do mix bunch of vermiculite into it for the containers so it doesn't get too heavy or soggy.

While green manures & cover crops are safer, comfrey can get hot in large amounts. Anyone who has it has large amounts, unless it is block 14 or in pots.
I was talking about the manure in this thread.
I am a big believer in green manures, but I was speaking about animal manures.
pt03 thanks for the correction, I missed the harvest.
Must be old age slipping up on me, again.