Last week I went out to Laurel Valley Soils for an editorial assignment. Laurel Valley is an Avondale, Pennsylvania based manufacturer of soil and compost based products for wholesale to garden centers, landscape contractors, sports turf installers, and nurseries. I love dirt. I love digging in it with my bare hands, planting seeds into it and pulling plants out of it. Chances are that if you meet me anytime between early spring and late fall I’ll have dirt under my nails from digging around my garden. So when the opportunity to run around this giant dirt box came my way I jumped at the chance. Learning about where commercial soil comes from has always been of some interest to me especially since I developed a debilitating gardening addiction. Jake Chalfin, the sales manager whose portrait is at the end of this post was kind enough to give me the full rundown of how this process works, where soil comes from and how different mixtures and created.