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ocalagirls

How bad is your soil?

ocalagirls
11 years ago

I found this website when doing a little research on Florida soils. You can search and look at all the USDA soil survey maps. You enter your address, set the area you want and it spits out a very detailed map. Once I found out what type I have (Hague Sands) I had to do a little research to find out what the soil is like/good for. It turns out my soil isn't too bad :) If I ever move I'll definitely be using this site.

Here is a link that might be useful: Web Soil Survey

Comments (15)

  • slopfrog
    11 years ago

    Looks like I have Myakka Sand. Boy that site was hard to use on my iPad! I guess Myakka isn't all that great. But I'm not sure how soil can have "high permeability" and be "poorly drained" at the same time!

  • Michael AKA Leekle2ManE
    11 years ago

    After learning that I have Candler sand, I did a search and found, also on the USDA.gov site, a list of native trees and understory plants. If I ever needed to know what I could plant and forget... there's the list.

  • thonotorose
    11 years ago

    I have Myakka and Malabar. Poorly drained means that the water table is just below the surface. I AM next door to a swamp.

  • ladywingr
    11 years ago

    Duette sands -

    USE AND VEGETATION: Most areas of Duette soils are in scrub vegetation and used for wildlife habitat. Some areas are used for building sites. The natural vegetation is chiefly sand pine, sand live oak, rosemary, sawpalmetto, running oak, pricklypear cactus, fetterbush, and pineland threeawn. Slash pine grows in some areas.

    Gee, do you think I'm beating my head against a wall to grow anything else??? LOL!

    Thanks for the link - very interesting!

  • amberroses
    11 years ago

    I have Anclote fine sand mostly and some Myakka soil. I already knew my "soil" wasn't fertile.

  • saldut
    11 years ago

    I can't get my dim-bulb head around this site, it sure looks interesting from what-all you guys are saying but it is completely lost to me....par for the course!! anyway, I've dumped so much compost et al on my garden that the 'native soil' is prob. no longer there..? thanx for the site, sally

  • ladywingr
    11 years ago

    Saldut - If this link works, you can see the St Pete types. Primarily Astatula and Myakka. If you click on the soil links on the web page, it will describe them to you.

    Here is a link that might be useful: St Pete soil

  • jason83
    11 years ago

    Looks like where I'm at is 50/50 Penney-9 (??) and Ortega fine sand. Super well-drained. We're on a natural sand hill and it never floods here..very dry all the time. Have had difficulty growing a lot of things in it, and mixing in Organic matter it disappears after a few months. What a wasteland...lol

  • ocalagirls
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    It looks like I hit the Florida Soil Jackpot. My dirt is "well suited to general farm crops, most crops can be grown without irrigation" I guess my thumb is not as green as I thought since I can't claim to have horrible sandy soil anymore! Hats off to all the persistent Florida gardeners trying to grow stuff in sugar sand!

  • amberroses
    11 years ago

    What the heck? You actually have farm crop soil? Naturally? Are you sure you're in Florida?

  • jason83
    11 years ago

    You're very fortunate! :)

  • loufloralcityz9
    11 years ago

    Good grief, looks like growing old among the pines & oaks is all I can grow around here on this hill.

    Astatula fine sand, Slope: 5 to 8 percent
    Depth to restrictive feature: More than 80 inches
    Drainage class: Excessively drained
    Capacity of the most limiting layer to transmit water (Ksat): Very high (20.00 to 50.02 in/hr)
    Depth to water table: More than 80 inches
    Frequency of flooding: None
    Frequency of ponding: None
    Ecological site: Longleaf Pine-Turkey Oak Hills

    Lou

  • apapjim
    11 years ago

    I had mine tested. They said I needed everything but sand and nemotodes!

    Papa Jim

  • tomncath
    11 years ago

    Lou, Lou, Lou. Where is you're sense of humor?

    How bad is your soil?

    It's so bad that even the nematodes run from it....

    Come on folks, we need more lines to this story ;-)

  • Michael AKA Leekle2ManE
    11 years ago

    My soil is so bad the only other place it can be found is a prison yard.

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