The soil where I live is very, very bad. It’s rocky and won’t grow much other than weeds. Part of the problem with my specific area is when the construction crews came through and "leveled" our area, they cut away the topsoil and left tons and tons of gravel on everyone’s property. Our soil is already rocky enough, but the gravel makes it 100% worse.

The point of this post is not (well, mostly not) to complain about my soil. Nope, there’s an actual story that’s somewhat garden-related here. Now, Nashville soil doesn’t look quite as bad as the soil I have pictured here. The soil I grew up with looks like the top pictures in this link.

When I was 10 years old, my parents took me to Villa Grove, Illinois to visit relatives. They told me to go play with cousins I didn’t know. When I asked them what there was to do around there, they said, "We could dig a hole."

Cue me looking at them like they were aliens from the planet Xerxes. I went along with them anyway, not wanting to seem rude. (I’m sure the look I gave them was pretty rude, but hey, I was 10.) So, we went to the shed, got some shovels and started digging.

When that first shovelful of soil came out of the earth, my jaw dropped to the ground. Their soil was BLACK! The only time I had ever seen black soil was when my dad had bought it for potting plants. I took off running to tell my dad about the black soil they had.

My aunts and uncles just laughed and told us we were welcome to dig up part of their yard if we needed some potting soil.

What kind of soil do you have around your area? Is it good to grow things in, or is it hard to grow things in?