Earthworm Massacre

Yesterday was one of those "rain, rain, go away" days. I took Olga for an early-morning walk, but otherwise we stayed inside almost all day. I'd hoped to go to Homebase to buy some gardening stuff but Dave wasn't feeling great, so we put that off until later.

I got outside long enough to shoot some photos of the rain on the patio (above). See how our forget-me-nots are already in bloom?

This was my major achievement for the day. We've been talking about turning the back corner of the garden into a wildflower patch. So yesterday morning, before the drizzle began, I got out there with a shovel and removed the sod, undoubtedly one of the dirtiest jobs I've undertaken in the garden ever. I killed or traumatized about a hundred thousand earthworms in the process, which I felt bad about, and I kept trying to move them out of the way, but our lawn is so thick with them that they couldn't be avoided.

(If earthworms are the sign of healthy soil, as is often said, then our soil must be supercharged.)

As you can see, I left the borage around the edges of the patch -- we like it, especially when the blue flowers emerge and the bees buzz around it in droves.

The challenge is going to be keeping Olga out of this zone. I think we may buy some garden fencing, as much as I hate it, to discourage her. We still need to get some wildflower seeds -- I'm hoping that slugs won't be drawn to them, since they survive in the wild, after all.

I also salvaged a couple of clay flowerpots from a pile of discarded construction debris in front of a neighbor's house. (There's always at least one house under renovation on our street. It's crazy.) One of the pots had some bulbs growing in it -- I think they're bluebells. More bulbs for the garden!