Soil ...Just dirt...or is it?

Most people will look at soil and just see dirt. What is soil, really, and what makes good soil? Soil is productive. That means it will grow your plants from seedlings, whether flowers or vegetables, into vigorous, healthy mature plants. Soil starts out as rocks. Over the years the rocks are ground down finer and finer until they become dirt. It's easy to tell how fine the rocks have been ground by how fine the particles are in the dirt, from coarse sand to fine, slippery clay. But, it takes a lot more than just dirt to make soil and you won't find pure dirt occurring naturally.

As the rocks a...