Rudi came down with me to the garden today and we put some sweat equity into the plot. We cleared the rest of the land. Yay! No more condoms or drug paraphernalia in our garden!

Rudi transplanted a number of violets from other sections of the garden to form a border along the fence and planted three dozen marigolds that he bought last week. He also hauled in some manure to mix in with our soil. I hoed around the rest of the plants. The back corner must have been used to grow rocks in the past, because I harvested a whole bunch from that section of the plot.

I find it an encouraging sign that there are lots of worms in our garden. Every time we pulled up a weed or shifted a board or turned some earth, it seemed like there was another gigantic worm. I feel bad, because I’m sure we hurt some of them with or hoe and shovel, but they were very hard to avoid. I also hope that those birds who were hovering about didn’t make away with any of them.

We identified a number of plants: sage, lettuce, and ramps. Rudi picked some of the ramps and made them the centerpiece of a lovely pasta sauce for tonight’s dinner. (If we die, it was the “ramps.” You can find the rest of the sauce in the fridge for the toxicology analysis.)

We also ditched some plants, which seemed to be more weed than intentional garden addition. And apparently I didn’t replant my non-dead herb properly because the rain had managed to unearth and kill it. Oops.

Next up is finding some veggies to plant. I’m hoping to find some lettuce and chives and English peas and beans. I think it might still be too early to plant tomatoes and peppers, so I’ll hold off until May for them.