In parts of our garden, digging around in the soil is guaranteed lead to bits of old bricks, roofing tiles, crockery and glass. In fact in some parts that kind of junk wasn’t even hidden in the soil but lying right on the surface, but I cleared those areas as soon as possible to make the garden safe for bare feet. For years we made sure to always wear shoes on the slope of weeds. But there’s a lot of ground I haven’t touched, so there’s plenty more junk still buried here.

Out of curiosity, I saved some of the more interesting-looking pieces of junk I unearthed while I was planting bushes behind the house this summer. They’ve been lying in a bucket, waiting for my attention, which they got today.

I’m surprised at the sheer number of different designs I find. It’s not like someone has thrown out a single plate or a cup in their compost heap – there are pieces of dozens of different items.

Most are hard to date. I wish I knew an expert in vintage and antique ceramics!

The brown little bottle was easy to identify because it has a logo. Rulles is a maker of liquer essences, still exists, and their website has a small photo archive.

I found pieces of one or more plates with blue and white decorations in a Chinese style…

… as well as pieces of other blue and white crockery.

A lovely plate with a green design of flowering branches…

… and a strikingly ugly design that is apparently suppose to invoke an impression of China again.

Plenty of chunks of plain white plates – more than one because of differences in thickness and curvature.

An item in unglazed earthenware, perhaps a flowerpot.

Also the head and torso of a small plastic doll, a little bit larger than a matchbox, slightly creepy.