cheeky chap

I keep a bucket at the back door to collect kitchen waste before dumping it in the compost bins. Normally I have it covered but this lunchtime I left off the lid and went back later to find this little fella in the bottom and looking a bit bedraggled.

young vole

He couldn't have climbed up the slippery outside of the bucket so I assume he must have jumped in from the privet hedge. Anyway, I lifted him out and sent him on his way to find an alternative food source.

Wildlife interlude over and now back to growing things. I bought a couple of bags of overwintering onion sets the other day and planted up some into containers in the greenhouse with the rest going outside. The greenhouse ones are close spaced to be pulled as salad onions early next year.

The picture was taken earlier and the week and already the first green shoots have appeared. These are in one of those supermarket mushroom trays.

In the greenhouse the big clean-up is still under way and I've managed to get half of it washed down with disinfectant. I still have the chillies and an aubergine plant in there but once they're finished I'll get on with the other half. Pots and seed trays are all neatly stacked but not cleaned yet. That's a job I like to do outside on a sunny day and I might have a long wait for one of those!

Out on the plot I still have beetroot, cabbage, carrots, chard, kale, leeks, lettuce, pak choi, parsnips, swedes and turnips so we won't starve for the next few weeks.