I have a question I hope someone can answer for me. I recently started a garden in buckets and that didn`t work. Everything died . Now I have the garden in the ground. Since we have a lot of sand here, I used the miracle gro soil that you mix with your soil/sand. I water it every day using the miracle gro food that you mix with water. How long or how much water should I be using? Is there such a thing as over watering? I am a new gardener and I know next to nothing about this. Any advice ? Our sun is very hot! I am going to google it too. Just thought someone here might be able to give me some advice.

Ya certainly can over water plants. It's best to keep an eye on the soil n just make sure it's somewhat damp. You never wanna have the soil get dry/crusty/hard. That means ya didn't water enuff. It's also best to water earlier in the mornin that way the plants get water and the soil gets nice and damp beforethe hot sun comes and dries everything out to a crisp. Also, if ya did over water in the mornin, the sun is likely to dry up some of that excess water.

You could also look into some self watering systems where the soil only takes the amount of water it needs.

Good luck and keep up posted!

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I am not an expert gardener, but I have learned this when trying to grow plants in the house. The container the plant is in needs to have slits in the bottom, and stone at the bottom to allow excess water to drain away. If you look at the containers that are made for growing house plants, you will see they are already set up with the openings at the bottom.

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You may want to check out your state's agricultural extension service. They'll have a lot of good information on how to grow things in your state. You may want to start a compost pile and use other tactics to enrich your sandy soil. It can be done. My folks grow a great garden only a few blocks back from a beach.

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Have you thought about raised bed gardening? It involves a planter box with no bottom.
You set that on the gound, fill it with soil, put in your seeds and water. Any excess water
will drain out the bottom.

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I'll second the raised bed or square-foot garden. We have very heavy clay soil in this part of Va (at leasy my particular piece), and raised beds make growing tomatoes and cucumbers (etc) routine. Easier maintenance to boot.

Noticed this link to another thread that may help.
http://www.emergencypreparationforum.com/square-foot-gardening-326.html

I don't know much about gardening. My folks aren't officially "preppers," but they grow a pretty nice garden near a Florida Beach. They have a compost pile and use that to enrich the soil. When I was young, they also went to a stable and got a pickup truck load of manure and sawdust. (Don't ask who had to crawl in the back of the truck and secure the truck top. Grrr... ) They have a heat pump furnace and well and big rainwater collection buckets for a water supply.

They definitely rely on the agricultural extension service and plant nurseries for advice. They grow greens (collards, mustard, etc.), lettuce, butter beans, corn, tomatoes, satsuma oranges, grapefruit, and they have a wild banana tree. Fig trees grow way too well in their yard. They are pretty close to self-sufficient in produce with a fairly small garden. Good luck! You can do it!

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It kind of depends on what you are growing, which you didn't specify. Not all plants have the same growing requirements.