Why gardeners hate it when you say “dirt”

What’s the difference between soil and dirt?

if you’re growing plants, you’re (probably) growing them in soil, and hopefully not dirt. A great foundation for caring for plants and the planet is knowing the difference between soil and dirt. In this picture, guess which one represents dirt?

What’s soil?

Soil is alive. It’s a self-sustaining ecosystem with colonies of microorganisms living inside it. Inside soil, there’s micronutrients (plant AND people need this!!) waiting to be used and the plants that grow in healthy soil will be full of nutrients because their home is feeding them all sorts of healthy things. If you have healthy soil, you need to keep it COVERED so these nutrients don’t leach, wash, or get eaten out! I’ll talk about that more in another post.

Soil can turn into dirt when it’s not taken care of.

WHAT’S DIRT? Dirt may want be soil, but it can’t because it’s dead. Dirt is dusty, dry, and does not have living microorganisms in it. In industrial farming practices, you might see plants growing in dirt because conventional practices often kill all microbial soil life to better control the growing environment for automated management and production practices. This means that plants cannot draw nutrients from the soil, so vegetables that are grown this way are not as nutrious as vegetables grown in healthy soil. Dirt also erodes when rain falls. Because dirt has no microorganisms or organic material to hold it together, extreme weather and large spaces of dirt (empty fields) causes all sorts of disasters like mudslides, dust storms and rising planet temperatures.

Bare dirt heats up the planet because dirt radiates heat, but plants growing out of soil COOLS the ecosystem, while also sequestering carbon out of the atmosphere.

So, what’s the takeaway? Keep your soil alive by keeping it COVERED with something like mulch, cloth or cover crops. This helps the microorganisms and organic matter in your soil alive, and keeps your plants and planet healthy.