Dirty Dirt.

There's this thing about the outside garden at the moment.  I haven't yet worked out an approach to dealing with it.  

The soil is full of crap.  It is positively brimming with junk of all descriptions which detracts from the lovely lovely blooms.  

The trouble is that it's really not yet warm enough to spend long chunks of time outside mucking about in the dirt.  Especially for someone who is usually only home in the mornings and evenings (ie not the hottest part of the day) except on weekends, when it is a) snowy, b) rainy or c) both.  I can't remember what I did (if anything) last year.  It's worse this year, anyway.

There is the usual spring clean-up to be done.  I put leaves down to help insulate the soil and the bulbs therein.  It's time to clear those out.  These poor daffodils are struggling through a hole in the leaves that can no longer accommodate their growth.

There could be stuff growing under the mess (it kind of looks like there might be grape hyacinths in the picture below).  I have no idea what/if there is, though because of the mound o' mess.

There is the frost-heave problem that I've been writing about already.  I've shown onions in our plot that are struggling to survive with nothing underground and surrounded by bits of plastic gears.  The earth at the surface is rough and pebbly.  Any crud that got worked in last year has worked its way out.

There's the combination of the frost heave and the leftovers from last year.  It's not a welcoming sight.

But worst of all, there is the detritus left by the guys who insulated our house last November.  It was way too cold to clean up after them at the time, and it's basically still too cold to be out gardening, but the whole bed is filled with chips of paint and chunks of wall.  

Plug after plug reveals itself.  It's going to take a lot of time, and unless I leave it for, honestly, months, it's going to take a lot of dextrous time in the cold.  

It's not only an aesthetic problem.  People see the yard in its current state of disarray and they do unpleasant things to it, like walk on it.  

Last year, I put bulbs in a part of the yard I have never used or treated as anything other than wasteland before.  It's a bit that sits between my front door and the driveway of the neighbours and it gets the snow dump from their plough.  This means that, basically, the earth has been salted.  I have not got much confidence that things will grow, but I had a large number of bulbs sitting out for a while after I'd dug them up accidentally, and I wanted to put them somewhere.  I also like the idea of reclaiming bits of land for flowers and nice things.  

I tore up the anti-weed barrier (which was coated in weeds, by the way) as far as I could.  I put in whatever black earth and compost I had available, and turned the soil until I was good and tired.  It looks like this now:

This spring, things are growing in that little patch.  The letter-carrier mercilessly marches over the patch.  No one discourages their dogs from exploring it.  And I can't really blame them, because it hardly looks like sacred ground.

But there are things that I planted growing in it!! Little, delicate things.  Things that might some day spring open to reveal colourful flowers.  

What am I going to do?  

Writing it down makes the answer obvious:  SUCK IT UP, BABY.  Am I a gardener, or a spineless softie not worthy of blossoms? 

I guess that is the point of having a blog.  It does help put things into perspective.  As for the answer to the question re: spineless softie vs. gardener, watch this space.