Yesterday afternoon Sophie and I got the okay from the Elementals to clean up the main vegetable garden for planting. Until then, the Elementals had asked us to stay out of this and several other gardens. We never know exactly why we get these directions. It could be as simple as our feet would pack down the soil too much, but we like to imagine there are all sorts of esoteric reasons.

Sophie and I hauled a couple of piles of weeds like this out of the main vegetable garden, glorying in the hot sun ( which you’ll note from today’s picture has gone AWOL on us again!).

Some weeds came up in places where I didn’t put enough mulch on last fall but most of the weeds come from the interface where hay meets lawn. For how big this garden is, we cleaned it up really fast, thanks to the mulch. (Yes, I am still happy to break into my MULCH INFOMERCIAL).

We also pulled out corn stalks that the Angels had asked us to leave in place all winter for energetic reasons. Now we’ll spread more mulch.

Under the blue tarp in the background is the hundred bales of hay we will use this spring for mulch.

This morning May May and I spent a good stretch of time weeding violets out of one of the perennial beds. Okay, so May May supervised with a tennis ball in her mouth while I weeded.

When I was first in Meriden, gardening my tiny plot in the village, I watched another gardener ruthlessly weeding out the Violets in her garden. I was shocked and therefore completely disregarded what this suggested about Violets. When I went to plant the gardens here, I welcomed two Violet plants and since then, much as I love the Violets, I have had many an hour trying to reign in their glory.

Okay, back to work.