Farmer's Almanac Weather Prediction for Ontario: "Sunny, warm."
Last week was incredibly warm. It was actually kind of scary to be outside in a t-shirt in mid-April. I wore a jacket every time I went out because I just couldn't accept it and kept anticipating a cool temperature drop at night.
 Even though I have been exceptionally busy, I made sure to schedule in some time in the side garden knowing that it would get cold again and I should take the opportunity for some much need vitamin-D and to clean up the horrible mess outside. And it was horrible! I have never, in all the years since we put that garden in, seen so much dog crap! We bought a six dollar rake with an extendible handle from "USA-Mart" and a pair of extra long rubber gloves from the dollar store especially for the assembling and delivery of said heaps of crap into refuse bags. Thankfully my good friend and neighbour J helped out or I'd have had to deal with it all myself. We've been talking about making a sign to put in the garden indicating to passersby that they may want to stoop n' scoop rather then allowing their dog to leave its crap for me to pick up.
Special highschool-style whiny message to those who walk by my garden everyday and allow their dog to crap there:
"I don't have a dog, but if I did, I wouldn't just stand back and pretend my dog wasn't crapping on someone's garden and then walk away as if nothing happened. I'd bring a plastic bag and I'd pick it up cause it's the responsible thing to do when one has a dog under one's care and because it's the law damnit! (Cause you know how important I think it is to follow the law :| )"
I'm tired of looking at and thinking about dog shit.
 So we cleaned up the garden. And again I just want to say how thankful I am that J volunteered her time to help out because I pretty much hate doing it myself at this point. I actually enjoy the task of working on the garden. It's good exercise and tons of fun (minus the dog caca). What I hate are the people who stand across the street at the law offices smoking their cigarettes and watching me bend over to shovel, dig, and pull. They never say a word. Just watch. It's aggravating. My theory is that 1. people are just rude 2. people think we work for the City and are therefore paid minimum wage to be out there scooping up their dog's crap. i.e. We work for them. I had this suspicion confirmed by a guy who asked us if we worked for the City and "could I come and plant his garden too?" At least he spoke to me. But not the lawyers and legal clerks and whatnot. They just stare. And smoke. And stare some more.
So just what did we clean from the garden? Well first we cleaned up the aforementioned dog doo, followed by various plastic bottles and fast food containers. I found empty liquor bottles (there's a liquor store around the corner), plastic bags, bus transfers, chip packages, chocolate wrappers, a disposed of dracaena stalk and roots, hot sauce and other miscellany. Then we cleaned up and cut off old stems, leaves and seed pods. We removed debris from around the crowns of the plants and dug up as many plume poppy roots as could be found. I could pull plume poppy roots up until kingdom come and the garden would still be over-run with them by mid July. The have literally formed an elaborate tunnel system of roots throughout the entire garden.
 The next step was to turn the soil around the plants and dig in some fertilizer. I used canola meal. I still have rock phosphate and compost to put in but I didn't have time that day. We've had a lot of rain lately so I didn't bother to water. Next I planted a few bare roots (poppies and purple coral bells) I had purchased at Canada Blooms. I'm a bit behind schedule in doing this so I'm not expecting a whole lot of poppy flowers this year. I noticed that poppies in the neighborhood already had tons of leaf growth!
We have a crappy old half barrel sitting in front of the building that I had planted up with irises given to me by Davin's mom several years ago. The barrel is completely falling apart at this point. So my goal is to dig up more garden, amend the soil (it is super clay!) and plant the irises. Then I plan to put down a rock mulch on the rest of the land to keep the weeds down and build a small fence from bamboo or twigs to keep the dogs out once and for all.
This is a lot of work but the fence will be a summer-time chore. for now it is most important to finish amending the soil.
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