Sick of the weeds and trash last summer cornered away between our  fence and the sidewalk, I dug it all up with a trowel, a borrowed shovel and leather work gloves.

I found a chair leg in the weeds, a recycling bin’s worth of glass in the dirt and untold broken bricks.

$27 later it was a mulched little patch with bargain perennials and clearance annuals since it was already early summer.

This spring it hosts a few clearance grocery store tea roses, an annual whose name I forgot, a thick row of smiling pansies, poppin’ crocus and a few nodding daffodils.

B loves saying “Hi, Pansies!” to them so much that she can spot other people’s pansies from the car now.

We rent.

Despite this, the land reclamation is moving along the fence this spring – I have big plans for that neglected little Weedtown out there.

I am so completely ahead of the game this year – I’ve had a bag of mulch and a bag of humus & manure mix out there waiting for me to dig this mess up.  I got them a month ago.

Neal found a $5 well-worn shovel for me at the flea.  That, my trowel, cultivator, leather gloves, classy pink plastic hospital pan (my constant garden project companion) and that 80-degree Sunday afternoon last weekend turned Weedtown into Mulchburg.

Mulchburg is still edgy, though.  I stopped pulling the large chunks of glass out about 10 minutes into it.