popular What have you done today in the Garden?

We have a large compost area and a couple of Dalek ones and it was always the Dalek ones that got the attention of rats.For the last 5 years they have been standing on a brick base..and all has been fine.

 

Spent just over an hour checking over the garden.

Cleared away all soggy leaves near the emerging bulbs as slugs seem to use them for an undercover hideaway near to they fave takeaway food outlet !!

Had to stake quite a few ...Daffodils!! Never had to do that before but the ground is so very waterlogged that it seemingly hasn't got the guts to support them !!! First for everything I suppose.

There really isn't much I can do and hubs is bored and suggested that we head out for lunch...so off we go again.

 

I had some shopping to do this morning, then get my golf gear ready for tomorrow. I've swopped my winter wheels and gone back to the standard one, as I'm sick of trying to clean the mud off the winter wheels with an air gun with insufficient pressure. The standard one will slip a bit on the steep sections of the course, but I can manage.
I then got into the big acer in the front garden and gave it a bit of a trim all the way round.
I needed both my Barnel telescopic pruner and my long Fiskars extending lopper.

"No ladders were necessary."

It doesn't look as if I've done much, but, I've pruned the ends off dozens of small branches, as well as doing a bit of shaping. I've probably missed a few but i can come back to those. I was beginning to get a bit of a stiff neck, constantly having to look up.
Hopefully, the buds on the side of the branches I've cut will grow laterally and the tree will keep its shape.




There's tennis and Olympics on the TV now to keep me occupied.

 

Oreti— interesting that your Daleks were also susceptible to rat invasion.
We only have two compost depositing things. One is the Dalek and the other is self-made and much larger.

The self-made one has the leaves, stems, tree leaves and things like that; the Dalek is where we pur veggie and fruit refuse, thinking that because it was closed that it was impenetrable. WRONG.

This is the first time the beasts have penetrated the perimeter. We do not need this type of uninvited and unwanted guest.

Hopefully the measures we took will keep it out. I will consider the brick flooring if not. Ta for the info.

 

We have exactly the same set up as you do @Sjoerd !!

The big ' home - made one is used for everything except the kitchen organic waste...all that goes into the Daleks.....perhaps the horrid rodents prefer fruit and veg scraps ???

 

Oreti— I know for a fact that you are right about what you suspect the rodents’ preferences are. I look around the allotment complex and see the fruit and veg that the antisocial gardeners have let lie-about on the ground— restaurant offerings for the beasties.

It is the manifested preference of the rats and mice that led to our refuse segregation.

Sometimes gardening is a string of problem solving.

 

It stopped raining for 5 minutes today so I hoiked 4 dumpy bags of leaves into the other bags. I aim to reduce 14 bags down to 2 by the end of the season. Mind you, I've still got 3 from last year

 

That's just to confuse you


I've got 3 of those darlek bins, got them on the patio slabs and don't have any trouble with rats.