December gardening and thieving mice.

Posted by Rosie

This has not been a week for getting out in the garden ... or rather when it was good weather I was otherwise occupied and when I had the time it was chucking it down.  That said I have managed to get a few more things knocked off my December To Do List:

The corner of the polytunnel with the cold frame in it is now looking all nice and tidy and ready for sowing in next year.  I have a plan on how to get on extra early but that will have to wait for another post.  However that is parsley you can see there in the bottom left of the picture rather than where it should be i.e. in the freezer.  On the plus side you may remember I bought a peanut plant back in the spring and this week I harvested our crop and blogged about it here.

I also got on and sorted my seeds out and discovered that it was not actually necessary to have searched round half of Normandy to find onion sets as I had already bought them in England and but had completely forgotten doing so.  Oh well, I've planted most of them now and all things being well, we should have plenty of early onions next year.

I've also sown four short rows of broad beans and have put the seeds twice as close as normal. At this time of year germination can be a little sporadic and some seeds can rot in the soil. Mice can also be a problem, stealing seeds, so I have hedged my bets and sown extra seeds.  If they do all germinate I'll take out every other one and transplant that into further rows but if they don't all grow hopefully I won't have gappy rows of beans.

The mice had also been busy in the house and back in late October had stolen a whole tray of my drying bean seeds.  I was furious!  However all is not last and today, whilst having a mega sort out in the loft room, I found 3 stashes of my stolen seeds including this one on a shelf behind a box I moved! 

I did manage to get one or two things done outside (mainly because I was so embarrassed how little I had done) - I added a bit more manure to an empty bed and cut back and covered the gladioli and dahlias before adding a generous mulch of old hay which I am hoping will be enough to protect them from any hard frosts we have. The sticks mark where the dahlias are so I will know where to look for new growth next spring. I may need reminding to remove the mulch though.

Have you managed to get anything done in your garden this week?  If not, see who has over at Annie's gardening linky, How Does Your Garden Grow.