Garbage has been a problem going back to ancient Greece. People burned waste, fed it to animals, buried it, and most commonly, tossed it wherever they could. Some cities built over the waste, and pioneered new ways to combat vermin and disease. But before garbage collection and city dumps, most people used their backyards to dispose of their waste. Evidence of this surfacing every spring from the Dusty Victorian's backyard.
Because the end of the yard is on a slope, each spring the melting snow washes away sediment and exposes broken bits of glass, earthenware and porcelain. Quite a nightmare when one has dogs. It's a miracle that none of them have been injured by the shards of broken glass.
This square bottle looks like it came from a Victorian apothecary, perhaps filled with the very addictive laudanum. 
As soon as the snow starts to melt, I'm like a hawk hunting for bits that could injure my dogs. These were collected over a one-month span. There was much more this spring than last spring, I think it may have had something to do with the very irregular temperatures this past winter.
These shards were stuck under the roots of a tree.
Here is a little piece of porcelain, pastel colours on white background, perhaps from a tea cup or saucer.
Another piece of porcelain, with gold flecks still visible, and a piece of earthenware with a vivid teal blue flower pattern.
Logically, the oldest pieces would be buried the deepest, so most of what I'm finding is probably depression era to pre-Second World War.
This being said, I'm more of a gardener than an archeologist and what I'm finding has no real value except to trigger my imagination with ghostly images of the past. These dishes and glass pieces were used by residents of the Dusty Victorian - and to me, this is rich. But like weeds, they have to be extracted and disposed of for the sake of my dogs.
