Imagine taking a jar, adding a few stones and some dirt from your yard, then sealing it up and waiting.
Days turn into weeks, then months, and then hundreds of days go by.
And what’s inside the jar?
An entire mini ecosystem!
As time passes, moisture from the soil evaporates and condenses on the jar’s walls, raining back down on the dirt. Green shoots start popping up and moss starts growing.
Nutrients get recycled as plants die, break down, and feed the soil.
Microbes and tiny bugs break down organic matter and keep the whole thing from turning into a swampy mess. And the jar becomes a tiny world that mirrors our own in ways we don’t often think about.
Some people have chucked dirt in a jar, sealed it tight, and not opened it for over 20 years. The plants inside had to grow and die several times before finding the right balance and then thriving for decades.
Lucky for us, one YouTuber filmed his dirt ecosystem over 200 days and shares it with us in the following video (along with his brilliant and rather sarcastic sense of humor)…
