Over time, dirt has found its way into more and more parts of the game. In the Infdev phase of Minecraft's development, both dirt and gravel began to be generated in pockets underground, and from Beta 1.8 onwards it was found in villages too. Since version 1.11 - the exploration update - it can now even be found in Woodland Mansions.

But I don't really need to tell you where to find dirt, because you'll generally acquire stacks and stacks of it during the course of normal play. To stop it filling up your chests, consider using it to fill in terrain, rather than dig it out, when you want to flatten an area. Or make a farm out of it - growing anything from saplings to beetroot. Or just use it to convert the dirt shack you built to protect you from zombies on the first night into an enormous dirt palace with all mod cons.

When illuminated, grass will spread to any dirt block that it's placed next to - as we discussed when grass was our block of the week. But dirt has a ruder, less friendly cousin called "coarse dirt" that won't grow grass under any circumstances. You can make it by combining dirt with gravel in a 2x2 crafting grid, or hunt some down in the Mega Taiga, Mesa Plateau or Savanna Plateau biomes.