Hey, Tina. It sounds like we have similar growing conditions. I'm in northeast Florida, growing in 100% Tavares fine sand (gray sand, pretty far down). I've been where I live now for almost two years. When I first moved here, the house and yard were really neglected. The whole back yard was a 4-5ft tall field of spanish nettle. I had this design in mind for a fruit & veg garden growing in a labyrinth pattern. I got the opportunity to start working on that design here, and the first thing I did was dig a 40ft diameter, 2ft deep, 2ft wide trench around where I wanted to make the labyrinth. Took me a while, but I basically made a submerged hugel bed, and kept piling it up about another foot or so, then planted it with whatever I was starting, as I was starting (I can see where I completed sections in time for winter veg, and sections where I planted my summer veg, but it's starting to get really scattered now). That had definitely been my saving grace out here. Last summer during some heavy tropical storms I took a shovel out while it was raining, and found where the rain was collecting, and made mental notes about how much of that area looked like a little bog, and what areas felt like the lowest spots. I carved a little swale, and then piled wood above it (like a berm/swale design on contour with the little bit of topography I do have here--*very* marginal!), and dug another swale above that berm. I didn't layer as many "greens" in that berm as I did in my submerged hugels, so it's looking pretty dry and inactive there. But I filled the swales with compost, leaves, sticks, and greens (mostly spanish nettle), and planted it with sugar cane. I've now got elder, lemongrass, and watermelon seeded in my swales.
I have rain barrels that are a kind of stressful system right now. My gutter might be slightly uneven (there is a guard to keep leaf litter out of it, so I don't think there's an obstruction), so all the rain that hits this panel of my roof flows to one corner, instead of evenly flowing toward two corners. And the one corner happens to have a septic tank almost immediately underneath it (fantastic planning, whoever built this house!). So if I don't have three barrels and if I don't have two of them connected to hoses so that they start draining as soon as they start being filled, I'd have a cracked tank. But that's where the swales/hugels planted with my water-lovers comes in handy. Four feet away from my swale/berm is my hugel planted with seminole pumpkin. I'll alternate between the top swale, the bottom swale, and the hugel as far as where the primary barrel's hose takes the water.
People in temperate zones might have a hard time imagining places where comfrey and stinging nettle, dandelion and burdock are hard to find. If the primary reason for growing comfrey for green manure is that it grows right back after being cut to the ground, then spanish nettle meets that requirement. Spanish nettle will grow in sand, with little rain or with torrential rain, in 60 degrees or 90 degrees. I like to let it cushion some of my transplants when they're too little to tolerate the spring/summer climate, and then as they need more sun, just cut a fistful of spanish nettle. In some areas I have laid down oak leaves to suppress the dollarweed and other volunteers. When the spanish nettle comes up, I just let it get to about 1-2ft tall, or until it shows signs of going to seed, and then I cut it to the ground. I might use that as a green layer for my lasagna compost, or I might drop it there and cover with more leaves. Bees also love it, and you'll never be in short supply.
You might also be interested in chinampas, if you get so much rain that you have some real flooding problems. Or just as a neat way of building up some terrain for different plants' different needs.
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