A Yard Full Of Dirt, Is It or Isn't It?

Problem number one, I have what it seems like a yard full of sandy dirt.  The mint that is growing out of hand seems to be okay with this sandy dirt and the potatoes that have just started sprouting seems to be okay with this sandy dirt, so is it or isn't it growable in sandy dirt?

When it comes to planting I've been using my common sense and since I'm a first-timer at this growing thing that's all I've got and by-golly I'm going to use it!  I have to say that the common sense has worked well, so far.

When I began to analyze the soil in my yard the conclusion I came to was that it was sandy dirt, it was pretty hard to tell whether or not anything would grow in it, so I figured for results that would put a smile on my face I needed to put some nutrients back into the dirt somehow, just until my compost bin is ready to give a little.

So I've got a yard full of under-nourished soil with not quite enough in my budget to turn the whole yard.  I asked my logical and rational self what to do and it told me to start by planting in containers with a mixture of sandy dirt and organic fertilizer, that is exactly what I did.  I grabbed a large container filled it half with sandy dirt from the yard and then filled a little less than half with organic fertilizer I had left-over from my planting spree a year ago.  I mixed the two together and began to plant in containers.

So the lesson I learned on this day was that although it is true that the mint and potatoes in my yard seem to survive on it's own quite fine in the sandy dirt, when it's a question of whether anything can grow in this soil or that soil it really makes sense to figure out what exactly it is that is being planted.  Different vegetables need different surroundings, some like full sun while others like the shade or even a little bit of both, it's the same with the soil so take what is being planted into consideration.