Last night I locked the greenhouse as the police said there had been a lot of burglaries on sheds, garden furniture, greenhouses recently.
This morning I opened it up to find not two legged burglars but something with four legs - rats? or mice? had eaten their way through a tray of 80 sweetcorn and half of my Heritage climbing beans. I've had a search and found their way in - a small gap where the grape vine comes in through the bottom of the greenhouse wall. So I've blocked it up both from the inside and the outside and raised the beans onto the top shelf. I'll just have to see how many of the beans are left as I may damage any that are left if I start poking about looking for them. Then I'll have to buy some more sweetcorn and start again.
I've never had this problem before, so will be on my guard in future and may put a few traps down just in case.
RAID ON THE GREENHOUSE
Pat, what a pity about your beans - I hope you find that most of them have survived.
Maggi xxxx
PS. I don't know if you've seen from the thread on the RR forum, but the tomato RR is finally on its way to you! I posted it "certificado" on Saturday morning. It's packed with goodies - well over 100 different tomato varieties! I've included photocopied pics. and info. from the internet with my 15 trades, in case you found it interesting, but you may want to remove it before you send it home to Lelan, as it does bump the weight up rather. Hope you get it soon and enjoy it.
Thanks Maggi, I'm sure it will be worth the wait. If there is so much choice any extra info will be most useful. I'm surprised you managed to send it off so soon - how did you decide which ones to choose? I only hope I have enough seed to put back in - I used up quite a few of the ones I had put by for the R.R when I had to re-sow after my holiday. Jim admits he forgot to open the greenhouse one day when it was very sunny and must have cooked the seedlings.
Pat, I stayed up very late Friday night! I couldn't rest until I'd looked up all the toms on the internet and made my choices....
There are quite a few "freebies" in the RR. I'm sure Lelan and everybody else would be happy for you to have those without replacing them, as you're the last on the route; they are all duplicates, and Lelan won't want more than one packet of each variety. Also, some of my commercial packets have lots of seeds in them - in the case of Marmande, hundreds. Again, I'm sure Lelan would be happy for you to have some seeds from these packets, as I would be. The more you take, the less postage you will pay too!
You really are having bad luck with your greenhouse one way and another this year! By the way, the black plum and Kenilworth tom seeds you sent me have almost all germinated and are doing well, although they're still small seedlings, as I sowed them very late - like everything else this year. Did you lose the Cornu des Andes I sent you? I'd send you more, but I ended up with only 4 seeds left to sow, after everyone had begged a few off me! So far two have germinated, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed....
Hope the RR arrives soon and you have fun with it.
Maggi xxxx
Hi Maggi, Wonderful, the R.R arrived this afternoon and I've spent most of the afternoon and all evening looking through it. What a selection! Glad the seeds I sent you are doing OK. I have just one Cornu des Andes surviving, but that is about six inches high and I have planted it in a cosy corner in the greenhouse border today. I've found enough seeds to put in the R.R, although some of my favourites are missing with having to re-sow which is a shame. All the replacements have germinated well, so I will have to make sure I save some seeds from them. I've just about made my choices but won't be able to post it back to Lelan until Friday as I'm going to Harrogate spring flower show tomorrow. I dread to think how much postage it will cost it is rather heavy now, but I would feel greedy if I took more than my share of seeds out. The book is a good way of setting them out, but adds to the weight. It is still worth it for such a great choice of tomatoes. I think I'll sow a few more this year just to see what they are like, but most of them will have to wait until next year as I haven't much space left.
Pat xxx