Do any of these apply to you?

• Water stands in your garden for extended periods after watering or rain.
• Your soil is compacted and difficult to dig into.
• Your plants are stunted or dying.

If you said yes to any or all three, then coarse sand just might be the missing ingredient your garden is begging for.

We often think of soil as a uniform substance, but it’s actually composed of different particle sizes and materials. Besides sand, there's mainly silt and clay. The amount of these three materials determines your soil's texture. And as you've probably guessed, the texture of your soil plays a huge role in the health and productivity of your vegetable garden.

Let's look at the benefits of sand and how it stacks up against other garden amendments like peat moss and vermiculite. Then, I'll give you the ingredients for an organic soil mix that's light, fluffy, sustainable, and, most importantly, ideal for lush plant growth.

At a Glance

• Coarse sand improves drainage, promotes better airflow in the soil, and helps soil warm up faster in the spring, all while being a sustainable and natural garden amendment.
• The ideal soil mix for your garden is called sandy loam soil.
• You can create your own organic sandy loam soil by mixing equal parts topsoil, compost, and coarse sand.

What Is Coarse Sand?

Coarse sand is exactly what it sounds like: The grains aren’t smooth but angular compared to the rounded, softer grains of playground or beach sand. Coarse sand is what builders use when doing builder projects. (It’s often called “torpedo”, “carpenter”, or “masonry” sand.)

Depending on where you live, you may have more or less coarse sand in your native soil. If you're not sure what you're working with, follow these steps to do a simple soil test. 

In the picture below, you can see coarse sand compared to topsoil.

The Benefits of Adding Sand to Garden Soil Mixes

Here are the top benefits of adding sand to your soil:

Sand Improves Drainage

Sand is made up of large particles, especially compared to other soil components like silt and clay. Sand is, after all, just tiny fragments of rock.

Clay, in contrast, has teeny tiny particles, which is why it packs together and becomes really dense. The denser the material, the harder it is for water to get through. Clay-heavy soil holds too much water, which can create conditions where roots suffocate or rot. Plants really only need the soil to hold onto moisture long enough to send H20 to their tender leaves and stems. They don't want it pooling on the soil surface or around their roots.

Because of their large size, sand particles spread far apart, allowing water to drain quickly. When you work sand into your garden soil blend, you’re ensuring water has a million routes around and out of the garden after it does its very important job of tending to your plants’ roots. That means your herbs and veggies won't be sitting in water.

Of course, you can have too much of a good thing. Overly sandy soil often drains too quickly and struggles to hold moisture, much like a sieve letting water pass through too fast.

Sand Promotes Better Airflow in the Soil

Most vegetables have tender roots that can't break through dense or compacted soil. They need lots of little air pockets that their roots can push into as they grow.

Well, the same large particles that let water through also add little pockets so that air can circulate easily. Better airflow not only means healthier plant roots, but also allows beneficial soil microbes to thrive.

Healthy soil is home to bacteria, fungi, protozoa, and even larger creatures like earthworms. These organisms help plants grow big and strong by converting organic matter into nutrients that are readily available to the plants. As you might guess, they also need oxygen to survive. That's why proper airflow is absolutely essential.

This is the reason plants often fail to thrive in clay-heavy soils. Those much smaller particles compact easily, restricting airflow and making it harder for plant roots and microbes to access oxygen.

Sand Is a Sustainable & Natural Resource

Peat has long been used to lighten up garden soil while holding onto moisture. Peat is readily available and inexpensive. But here's the thing: It's a nonrenewable resource—that is to say, it can't be renewed at the rate we're using it up. Peat takes hundreds to thousands of years to form in the first place. Harvesting peat destroys wetlands, which store carbon and keep it out of the atmosphere. So basically, using peat is like cutting down an ancient forest to build a campfire.

Other gardeners use perlite and vermiculite to lighten their soil. While they're natural, they're not in their naturally occurring form by the time you buy them. Both are processed in furnaces and have to be shipped long distances.

Sand is a much better alternative.

Sand can be found all over the planet, and it doesn't require a destructive extraction process like peat. The sand that we use in our gardens is, in fact, just a byproduct of other natural processes (mainly weathering and erosion). That means you can build a soil blend without feeling guilty that you're depleting natural ecosystems.

Using sand in your garden is really just imitating nature. I talk about this in my book, Kitchen Garden Revival. Picture a riverbank. Water comes down from the mountains, depositing some coarse sand as it rushes through the bank. The silty soil along the river is full of organic matter left behind from plants and animals, and now those sand particles provide good drainage. This is why so many of the crops we grow in our gardens originated along riverbanks.

Sand Helps Soil Warm up Faster in the Spring

The large particles of sand absorb and retain heat, which means sandy soil warms up much faster in the spring than clay-heavy soil. Not only will your soil be workable sooner, it'll also be the ideal temperature for seed germination.

Root Crops & Herbs Thrive in Sandy Soil

Sand in your soil mix prevents compaction, which means your root crops like carrots, radishes, and beets can grow unimpeded. It also prevents water-logging, which taproots really don't like. The result is a larger, healthier harvest.

Herbs in the mint (Lamiaceae) family, like thyme, oregano, rosemary, basil, and lavender, are also happiest in sandy soil that reminds them of their native Mediterranean climate.

Are There Any Disadvantages to Adding Sand to Your Vegetable Garden?

I've already mentioned that sandy soils are prone to drying out. Those large gaps between the particles allow water to trickle down, just out of reach of your plants' roots. Because sand allows water to pass through quickly, it also struggles to retain nutrients and quickly turns more acidic after heavy rain.

Lastly, sand doesn't stick together well. You know this if you’ve ever tried to cup sand in your hand. That makes sandy soil a poor foundation for your plants' roots.

With these cons in mind, it's clear that few vegetables would be very happy growing in super sandy soil.

So how do we balance out the cons so that we can still enjoy all the pros of sand in our soil mix?

It's simple. We mix sand with organic matter.

Let's look at a soil mix that has the ideal proportions of sand and organic matter.

How to Create the Ideal Sandy Loam Soil Blend

A mixture of sand, silt, and clay—called loam—is considered the ideal soil texture for gardening because it balances drainage and nutrient retention. It holds moisture while still allowing excess water to drain away.

Remember when I talked about that sandy riverbank that hosted many of our early fruiting plants? That riverbank would consist of sandy loam soil. I was thinking about that riverbank (and how nature does things) when I came up with my magical sandy loam soil blend. Here are the ingredients:

Topsoil

Topsoil is the top layer of your soil. You can buy organic topsoil from the store or soil yard, or you can just dig up the topsoil in your yard (assuming it hasn't been sprayed with pesticides or synthetic fertilizers).

Compost

Compost is my organic matter of choice for my kitchen garden. You can use homemade compost or leaf mold, or you can buy compost from the store (I love mushroom compost). If you think back to the riverbank, compost gives us that decomposed matter from plants and animals. Compost is rich in nutrients (which, if you recall, sand lacks). It improves drainage in clay-heavy soils and helps sandy soils retain more water.

Coarse Sand

Again, this is not beach or play sand. You can find coarse sand at plant nurseries, hardware stores (it'll be called paver sand), and soil yards.

Mix equal parts of each of these three ingredients together to create the ideal sandy loam soil blend. The exception would be if you live somewhere with very sandy topsoil and you're using this topsoil in your mix. In that case, cut down on the amount of sand you add to the blend.

There's one more ingredient to top off your soil blend. Think back to that riverbank where all the food is growing. There's not just silt and decomposed matter and sand. There's also some poop from the animals that come to the river to drink and hunt.

We can recreate this in our gardens with earthworm castings. Earthworms help to break down organic matter, and while they're at it, they excrete incredibly nutrient-rich waste.

So for every shovel full of topsoil, compost, and coarse sand you add, toss in a handful of worm castings, too. If you're amending the soil in an existing bed, dig down at least 12 inches deep. Aim to get these same proportions as you add compost and coarse sand to your soil.

→ Download this soil recipe to have on hand here. 

Sand in Soil FAQs

Is sand good for your soil?

Too much sand can be a problem, but the right amount of sand can improve drainage and add air pockets that benefit plant roots and beneficial soil microbes. Sand is also a sustainable and natural soil amendment.

Can I mix sand into my soil?

If you're creating a soil blend from scratch, I recommend mixing coarse sand with equal parts topsoil and compost (or aged manure, if you prefer).

Does adding sand to soil make it drain better?

The best way to improve drainage is to dig down about 12 inches and amend your existing soil with coarse sand and compost.

How do you fix sandy soil?

If you have overly sandy soil, amend the top 12 inches with compost. Compost will add nutrients, improve water retention, and create more structure in the soil to support plant roots. Continue adding a 2- to 3-inch thick layer of compost to your soil surface before planting each season.

There you have it. If your plants look stressed out, are rotting at the roots, or simply aren't thriving, ask yourself if sand could be the answer.

Coarse sand is a wonderful garden amendment that's simple and sustainable—just the way nature intended.

Building healthy soil is part science, part art. If that sounds intimidating, don't worry. Gardenary Soil School is here for you. Inside, I’ll walk you step by step through how to test, mix, and repair your soil using natural methods.

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Sources

MSU Extension

OSU Extension