"Luke" wrote in message
...

Hello Everyone ,

It's been a long time since I've posted here but I've recently gone
through a riverchange (moved from Adelaide to the beautiful river town of
Mannum). The house we've moved into has a little veggie patch in the front
yard which gets full sun pretty much all day and the soil is quite sandy.
My question is what sort of veggies will grow well here, bearing in mind
as of January 1 we have major water restrictions.

hmm, without considering water restrictions, here is a list of veg which
prefer sandy soil (c/- john seymour): jerusalem artichokes, capsicum,
cauliflower, asparagus (that's a perennial, keep in mind), carrots, lettuce,
melons, okra, onions, peanuts, swedes, turnips and (not from j. seymour)
eggplant (apparently). in terms of water, sandy soil needs more of it &
there's no way around that. if i were you, i'd consider areas to get the
water from in order to water it (e.g. shower, washing machine rinse water).
or keep it small & therefore easily watered by hand. or install a timed drip
system. after it becomes loamier, it will need less anyway, of course. mulch
over the top.

Any ideas for what I could plant now and
then down the track what are good winter and summer veggies for this soil.
Or should I be trying to improve the soil.

i'd add my voice to "improve the soil". :-) after you've seen a bit of
improvement, you can start planting.

it needs organic matter. like farm1, i'm having good experiences using horse
poo & lots of it, (we have clay) & it's magnificent. ime, you can
sheet-mulch with it & there are no weeds... (mind you, i think our
supply-horse is mainly eating hay - therefore you'd expect few to no weeds).
sand does not hold moisture well, & humus from organic matter will improve
that. not immediately, everything takes time, but sooner than you might
expect. but the decomposition process needs water, too. no amount of dry poo
in dry sand is going to help much.

Another question, is horse poo a good manure compared to chook or cow?
many people here sell horse poo for $2 a bag (the bag is huge) not sure
whether the poo is good for gardens or not

ya. get it.
kylie