I have read alot of information on bananas saying that they don't like sandy soils. In Florida, the native soils, or at least the soil on my property is mainly sandy. Back in December I wrote a posting in this forum entitled "Trouble with Banana Plants". The plants had been given to me by my neighbor and I planted them on my property, this was done about a year and a half ago. Long story short, the bananas did not do very well, many grew only a little bit in that time frame, and some produced some shooters. Some helpful information was given to me through this post by means of a website, but the one thing that was mentioned in this site was that bananas did not like sandy soils. So, since then I have kept the bananas in the same sandy soil, but I tested the soil to see what its nutrient content and ph was. The test came out bad, the ph came out at a neutral 7.0, the nitrogen came out at n0(depleted), the phosphorus came out at p0(depleted), and the potash came out at k2 adequate. I also tested the soils around my whole property and found the same results with one difference, the potash rating was zero everywhere else besides where the bananas were. I then relized that the leaves that were so often being shed by these plants were putting potash back into the soil where the plants were but they were not putting anything else back into the soil. After these results I realised why bananas don't like sandy soils, it's because these soils cannot hold onto nutrients and also cannot hold onto water. Since December I have been adding substancial amounts of fertilizer to the ground surrounding these plants, using miracle grow 24-8-16. At first I applied this once a week for two weeks and watered every day on hot days and every other day on cooler days, this seemed to have a slight responce because the plants seemed to begin actually growing again and foliage was actually green instead of a pale yellow. After the first two weeks I started applying this same formula twice a week, the plants began to grow even faster and continued to produce green foliage. Then in early February we had some bad frosts which killed all of the foliage on these plants even with covers over them. After this cold spell the weather warmed up into the 70's and 80's and all of the plants (which I thought were all dead) came back, and I am continuing to fertilize twice a week with actually vigorous growth.

Finally, my question is, if I continue to fertilize these plants the way I am, will it be bad for the banana plants, and also are banana plants difficult to grow in sandy soils because of the lack of nutrients in them or because of the root restriction?