After I brought Blake to camp, I came home and spruced up the garden without any spruces. I let the hose run low and for hours on the nectarine and pear trees and another on the cherry, and I would have watered the two longer but the plums needed their drink but couldn't have it from the north hose, since that spigot hibernates. I cut down all last year's growth from the front, now that the weather won't be cold. I stacked all the semi-woody stems on the tarps in back where I'm trying to smother weeds and grass; I don't know what I'll do with them. It's time to start afresh with mulch so I think I will churn all the dead spines of sage and agastache and penstemon all down to mulch-sized pieces and return it to the garden.
Next weekend I will empty and turn the compost and maybe empty the vegetable beds and restock their soil with young loam.