I tested my soil and discoverd it has 10% clay, 29% silt, and 59% sand. I've noticed my soil sucks when it comes to draining water (unless it's slowly raining). Water will pool on the top of the ground.
What can I add to my soil to make it drain better? I am growing watermelon and tomatoes.
If you always dig to the same depth, and you don't grow any deep-rooted plants, over the years you can form a compacted layer that won't allow water to penetrate. Try double-digging the bed this winter and see if the problem goes away on its own.
With 59% sand, really you should be adding material to retain water, not to get rid of it. An "optimum" mix is something like 20% clay, 40% silt, 40% sand.
Of course when you double dig, you might find some material down there which isn't "soil" at all - e.g. plastic sheets and piles of bricks that the builders just buried to get rid of them. Near where I live in the UK, a neighbour discovered about 200 glass milk bottles buried under a lawn which wasn't growing properly. How they got there is hard to imagine!
Rain can easily fall long and hard enough to produce puddles on any soil. Our area is ancient sand dunes of barrier islands, some organics in a few inches at the surface ,then dune sand to about 10 ft, a couple inches of clay and then more sand below that. . We get puddles in heavy and/or long rains.
