Ground Elder

There is a small moat behind the chicken coop. I spent an evening weeding out ground elder on its shore. The moat is very shallow and probably only half a meter wide. Enclosed in trees and garden walls. Occasionally a school of carps can be found swimming there.

Ground elder is eddible, but also a bit of an aggressive grower so I decided to dig it out from the roots. There's an abundance of worms in this part of the garden. I put half of the ones I dug up in my compost heap, the other half on top of the ground of the former chicken coop.

I threw out the roots, but left the stems and leaves of the ground elder on top of the mulch I covered the chicken coop with. It has quite a pleasant citrussy smell which helped cover up the last bit of the acidic manury smell around the place.

As I was working I slowly became one with the garden, just one of the many living things going about their business there. Only the church bells reminded me of the passing of time.