Allotment Week Day 4: Mouse in the house

Remember those courgettes I planted a few days back?

Well when I got the plot today, I was faced with a scene of utter devastation. OK, maybe I exaggerate a bit. But it seems like some hungry "thing" (I am suspecting mouse) has been liberally helping themselves to the planted courgettes. The seeds have been dug out of the pots and eaten.

About 5 of the plants have been got at in this manner. Though I know a couple of them, because the husks have been left on those pots, there are a few other where the husks have been left on the table. So, I'm just going to have to wait and see which ones germinate fully. Mind you, I have plenty of seeds to spare so it's no great loss.

But on the subject of planting, it's time to get the Edemame in. More commonly called Soya bean.

 

These will go into the bed which last year had the onions and sweet peas. It was manured late last year and covered with weed membrane. The worms have done an excellent job in getting the bed ready, indeed many are still in residence. A light forking over and it's ready to drop them in.

I used canes to mark out the positioning. the packet says to drop two beans in together, so that's what I did. 32 beans duly sown, and about another 32 held in reserve.

Elsewhere the seedings are starting to churn out at a great rate. Must be the coffee.

The small rhubarb has produced a health set of leaves.

Whilst the big one has just started to crank up the production.

I'm going to have to stop called them small and large now, because it just doesn't make sense when the "small" one is bigger than the big one. So I'll have to call them the front and back rhubarbs instead. I'm sure they're different varieties as the stems are slightly different. We've never really had the rhubarb from the back (aka the small) one as the slugs have always made a meal of the leaves and stems. But this year the slugs seem to be in, thankfully, short supply. But all the same, I now have some organic chemical free anti-slug pellets. The pellets are supposed to make the slugs stop eating rather than killing them outright. So they effectively starve themselves to death rather than be poisoned. Just as well as poisoned slugs are the worst things for your friendly neighbourhood hedgehogs.

Anyhow, back to the courgettes. I've grown them on the big mound for the past couple of years, so I can't really do that again. The mound is going to be turned into a green manure and flower mound. But it can't do that with it's jacket on.

So it's time to whip it off and start sorting it out.

I've dug away to side right next to the track, as there is often times when the tractors coming past to empty the waste bays drive over it. Tomorrow I'll flatten the mound a bit by taking the top off. It's reduce the height by a couple of feet but give a large flatter growing area for the Boss's flowers.

The Fox seems to have temporarily moved out because there are spiders webs across the front door. Maybe it's all the time I'm spending at the plot that's scared him away? I hope not. Want to get some camera traps setup to see what he's up to. But he is around. My nicely raked new beds have a nice long line of paw prints in them. Guess he's been checking up on my work.