Not to recently noticed much different colored soils in Fort Myers than up north. (Cape Coral: apartment)

[explorerman1]

Having moved from the Chicagoland area, it seems I noticed a totally different kind of color to the soil here in Fort Myers. A couple months ago, I bought a banana tree, and as I was planting it in front of my apartment, I noticed the soil here is almost white in color. And even as I continued to dig to plant my banana tree, I kept pulling up spadeful after spadeful of only white stuff. And here I am used to the dark gray soils in Northern Illinois and pulling up the dark gray stuff with my spade/trowl when I used to plant things back in Chicago.

Has anyone else move here from another part of the country and noticed a different color in the soil when gardening here as compared to where you came from?

[wellsme]

I'm from MA/ME and when we bought in Cape Coral I could not believe how anything could grow in such sandy soil. I'm use to the brown/black organic New England soil. I learned the hard way not to waste money on flowers and plants other than the more native types. The soil PH is another thing to think about. I had our soil tested and the PH was almost 8.

[explorerman1]

When I was digging to plant my banana tree, it literally looked as though I was pulling up beach sand with my garden spade! And I thought, nothing can possibly grow in beach sand. And just north of my apartment building is a whole stand of trees!

[Kim in FL]

You were digging in sand. This part of Florida doesn't have 'soil' unless you add it. You'd be surprised what can grow in sand.

[Compression]

LeeSpInS 2.0


Amongst the many interesting things you can find on this map site of Lee county is the soil number, and type, on any individual parcel of land in the county.
You just need the "STRAP" number for the parcel you are interested in researching.


CN.......

[DragonflyMom]

Here's why....about 1.8 million years ago, almost half of Florida was actually the ocean floor. I live in Venice, and I routinely pick up fossilized shells, bone and coral in my neighborhood.

[url]http://academic.emporia.edu/aberjame/student/barr1/report.htm[/url]

[countrykev]

Most all developments in Lee County are built on some kind of fill, usually coral and/or sand. Illinois has very rich top soil, and that just doesn't exist in south Florida.

[Fl1150]

Hard to believe when half the country's vegetables are grown right down here in Southwest Florida but with technology anything is possible. Banana's were actually a bigger crop in Florida back in time but most Banana's are imported nowadays. They probably can only grow here naturally in the sun because they are tropical type fruit.