I've had a great garden in pure sand. All you need is plenty of organics. I use cane mulch and grass clippings. I also use dynamic lifter extra or Searles 5 in 1 which is poultry manure with blood and bone, fish meal and trace minerals. Chemical fertilisers are too soluble and are quickly leached and end up below the plant roots. In Israel they turned desert into a food bowl.
As you build up the organic content you build up the soil bacteria and in turn they break down the mulch. You can speed up the process with a green manure crop. I find red clover a great green manure crop, dig it is as it starts to flower. Plants are living things, they are like us in the way they need food and water to survive.
Companion plants are worth looking at e.g. I always plant marigolds with tomatoes and potatoes. I also have a mini worm farm in the garden. My worm farm is a lidded bucket with no bottom. You just add the household scraps, a few worms to get started.and the worms do the rest. Bunnings sell live worms to get you started.
I'm 91 and started gardening from a toddler.
When the world wearies and life doesn't satisfy, there is always the garden.
