Just gardened from before the sun set until after it rose again. A green bin, trash can, and 7 bags full of compost. I unearthed a stone patio and walkway under my backyard!

When I moved in this smoke tree had been hacked half to death and then left to pollard out for years; the highest point was a tuft of leaves on an 8-foot whip.

So I trimmed the absurd stuff back gradually over 2 seasons so not to shock it, and that stimulated enough budding that hopefully I can train it back into some coherent shape.

I AM BECOME DEATH, MOWER OF GRASS

(from Scythe Supply of Maine)

Paying attention to the garden in spring, it’s really amazing how fast plants grow, at least around here

(Portland is relatively recent volcanic soil enriched by several mountain ranges worth of seasonal and glacial flood deposits and surrounded by rainforests)

I’m trying to keep dandelions from reestablishing themselves after pulling a ton last year, so I’m scanning the ground every day and I’ll pull everything and come back the next day and find whole plants - tiny, but complete, tiny little rosette of leaves, tiny little one flower in blossom on one inch of stem - that popped up in the 10 hours of sunlight since I last checked.

There’s a view out the window from the couch where I’m sitting now, that passes through the branches of two trees getting their leaves in, and every hour I look up its more opaquely occluded

realized one of the bushes that needed trimming was rosemary

This was not actually good, the rosemary was just one low note that the lemon didn’t really accent; when I tried to give it some flavor with hoisin sauce the fried rosemary preferentially absorbed it so I had bland chicken with sweet crunchy salt bombs

this roughed-up windstorm salvage is the first bouquet of the year

pomegranateandivy:

I am going to print this out, laminate it, and keep it with my gloves and spade.