Tag Archives: mice

Light Bulb Moments

It’s been a busy autumn and winter in the midlife garden.  We started by distributing two tons of revive compost around beds and borders after which started to make some strategic changes with plants.  The Christmas tree was dug from the garden and taken inside for the festive period, and replaced by a mariessii, which was otherwise likely to partially block the front path in the summer.

When we realised the Christmas tree might have survived the indoor festivities we decided to place it in the back garden: an exercise which included the removal and replanting of bamboo from the garden and a pot. All of which brings instantaneous results.

Less instantaneous, but hopefully equally pleasing results, are hoped to be gained from the bulbs that we planted in the autumn.

In the veg patch that meant garlic and onions.  The garlic is our go-to plant for mid-winter positivity, the green shoots reminding us that there is life in the midlife garden yet and I noticed this week even the onions are starting to show.

Beyond the veg patch, there is a plan for early spring flowers.  We sowed various coloured  ranunculus in pots in the greenhouse, but they have suffered repeated assaults, with some failing to germinate, some succumbing to damping off, while others fell victim to mice.  A few doughty plants remain, like survivors at Rorke’s Drift. The dachshund has busied himself trying to dig up the mice.

Out in the borders, we have sown a bunch of allium bulbs (Ping Pong and Azureum) in the Spursy bed to provide a little early blue and white colour.  But, the brightest spring moments are planned for the fruit tree bed, where, in between storms and prior to frosts, we managed to insert 600 tulips for cutting in the spring.

So, lots to look forward to, with crossed fingers.

Prepping for tulips
Prepping for tulips
Compost ready to go on the tulips
Ready to go
600 tulip bulbs?
Spreading teh tulips
Sowing
Mouse damage
Mouse damage ranunculus
Ranunculus survivors
One survivor
Remains of the mouse-hunt
Remains of the mousehunt
Garlic
Garlic
Splitting the smaller bamboo
Splitting the bamboo
Replaced bamboo…
With Christmas tree
Re-settled bamboo
Tall bamboo with the shorter stuff in the tub

Of Mice and Moles

160504 (3)The sun lay on the grass and warmed it.  And across the expanse of green the midlife gardener looked and saw the soft volcanic shaped mounds of light brown earth stretching before him.  The moles had been working hard over the past week, striving to excavate their tunnels under the lawn and pushing the soil from the darkness to the harsh sunlight above.

The man walked wearily over the once lush lawn as he looked for the old rusted shovel and the wheel barrow into which he would clear the mole hills.  Ants worked the soil too, on the edge of the borders, where more mole casts converged with the flower beds and grass and the once crisply cut border edge was now covered in the extruded soil, spilling like an over-filled tub.  And the man sighed as he saw the damage done to his flowers which were wilting with the lack of soil around their roots and the dust swirled in eddies between the yellowed stalks.

The cold spring had been preceded by a mild winter and the mammals of the garden had – like the slugs and snails – survived the dark nights and short days in greater numbers than previously and they were now reeking damage on so much of what had previously been well-managed vegetable plots.  The mice had laid waste to the peas and beans and broccoli seedlings that the midlifegardener had sown weeks before.  And as the cold spring had given way to the long early summer days that bore intimations of drought and global warming in the time to come, the man had taken action to combat the ravages of the mice.  For four days straight his traps had been successful and this morning as he walked though the kohl rabi patch towards the newly planted cabbages and broccoli and brussels he pondered what he might find.

It was with mixed emotions he looked down to see another mouse caught, dead, in the jaws of the plastic trap.  He rigged some protection for the young plants, fashioned from the timber window frames from the old house, with ancient sheets of glass – unequal in thickness due to the slow flow over time.  He wanted to avoid the need to trap more rodents.  It had worked in previous years – but would it work in this changing, unpredictable world?  Only time would tell.

He picked up the shovel and went back to the lawn.

Live and let live

White Rose
White Rose – black spot

The garden is coming on a-pace at this time of year and the new seedlings have managed to hang in there despite some rough weather. At the beginning of May we had high winds to contend with and more recently another area of low pressure has tested the resolve of the pea plants and the young cabbages and brussels. What the latest anticyclone did bring was some welcome rain as the ground was beginning to look a little parched in the intervening dry spell. That’s not to say that it has been warm – far from it – with this having been a very cold May.

Runners and French ready to climb
Runners and French ready to climb

And there have only been minor incursions from critters intent on ruining the planting. In the flower beds which we have planted with perennials and annuals, we have put chicken wire to stop the rabbits eating the cosmos, and this also discourages Ella with her size 15 paws from trampling them too. She seems to understand that jumping over chicken wire is a bad thing after being shouted at a few times when taking an “as the crow flies” route across the veg patch.

The evidence of badger foraging
The evidence of badger foraging

The only major incident of pest control has involved the rose that we transplanted from a tub to the hotch potch border. When putting the rose in its new home I thought I would give it the best chance of survival by using some blood and bone fertilizer around the roots.  Unfortunately I had forgotten b n b is attractive to omnivores such as dogs, who tend to take it from the pots of roses.  This pilfering of plant food was taken to a new level by another intruder – I assume a badger – which dug a monumental hole under the newly transplanted rose.  It looked like some sort of Great Escape tunnel, it was that well constructed, though the earth had been less well concealed, being sent across the grass rather than subtly kicked into the dirt of the exercise yard.

Elsewhere we are looking to contain an outbreak of leaf spot on the roses, and the first black fly are beginning to appear on the broad beans and – I am disappointed to see – on the Sea Holly.  This comes at a time when the Sea Holly (Eryngium) is finally beginning to look like the illustrations suggested, as up till now the leaves have been more oval and broad than I was hoping.  But they have finally settled into their new environment and sent up a central spike which is actually showing spiky leaves.  I thought I had been sold a dud, but now it looks as if a separate plant has been grafted on the base.    It’s all such a voyage of discovery.  You never know what’s round the corner with this lot.

Outside we have not – so far – had any mice eating the young plants so have not had to put up too many barricades as yet but in the greenhouse the row of Pak Choi shows signs of rodent attack, while down the borders (well I know) the lupins will just fail to show.  The heads have been eaten.  I am not suspecting mice – perhaps some little weevil I guess.

But the predators do not have it all their own way as I did find a dead mole on the grass – apparently giving itself up to the authorities, hands in air.   Ella has an occasional go at digging them up, so maybe I just leave it to her to police the beds.

Live and let die.