I don’t know about you but I have been using basing sand since year dot. Then I spend ages painting and highlighting it to make it look like soil.
Is there another way?
I thought I’d try out something I saw in AK Interactive’s Weathering Magazine where one modeller used soil. That’s right soil!
So I went out gathering, some dark forest soil (shown here), some fine pale river silt and a mid tone.
This is the first test piece, I put some gloss varnish on one side to represent wet soil. I think that the “crumb” (blame programs like “The Great British Bake Off”) is too big. This is a result of the size of the sieve. The bits of root give it a slightly more random realistic look.
Recently at a fleamarket I picked up a new addition to my painting tools. This should deal with the size of the crumbs.
genuine grumpy old tin 
Soil and pigments really give a realistic finish and you save time not drybrushing. What do you sue to fixate the soil? PVA or pigment fixer? For the sieving I use a small sieve from the dollar store, it seems the mesh size of those is better suited to get only the finest particles. Only catch is, that they are very small and a big batch of soil takes some time to process.
I used PVA glue to fix the soil. Haven’t as yet experimented with AK Interactive’s Gravel and Soil Fixer. PVA is fairly robust as I use, or plan to use, them as gaming pieces.
At the moment I’m using my Wife’s sieve, but this will have to change as she is not overly happy we me using it for soil. Like us gamers/painters professional chefs are quite possesive about their equipment.