loam: clay, silt & sand, combo of

soil is 'sandy loam', a light soil--a heavy soil being lots of clay (rather "having")

clay < silt < sand (according to particle size): the 3 basic  soul [sic] types, all three of which can be found in so. CA; "often more than one occurs in a single garden" (6, Pat Welsh's Southern California Gardening).

I suspect the beds are sandy [Jon claims that when Microsoft corrects a mistake such as 'there' instead of 'their' or vice versa we somehow will suffer, speaking in the long range future of a comparable thing that has happened to domesticted (Microsoft did not correct this to 'domesticated') dogs, the loss of their wold (sic) clannish-ness] ("scratchy or gritty to the touch [6, ibid.]) and so possibly a problem where the Pomello [two m's?] is planted--since Dominick noticed how dry it was [like a post-menopausal woman who finds sexual intercourse difficult or a katoey by a man finds the eviscerated penis of the ostensible vagina as scratchy as sandpaper when having sex with such a concocted being or an abomination or confabulation of some Platonic Form]--because if it is dry as a bone that means "individual grains of sand have become coated with organic fats and waxes from decomposing organic matter, such as eucalyptus or acacia litter" (7, ibid). Solution?:

[...] dig in copious organic amendments, apply mulch, and where necessary, use chemical penetrants (surfactants) to wet dry soils and aid water penetration. Don't let sandy soils dry out completely. Use slow-release chemical fertilizers or organic fertilizers, since these won't wash out of the soil as quickly as other types (7, ibid.).