Archive for June, 2012

In the winter months we tend to get rodent visitors. We have dogs, and compost, and our neighbours have chickens, so currently there is a rat that likes to frequent our place and the neighbours place.

It decided that I had left a feast out for it when it discovered my mini-greenhouse.

This was what was left of my newest planted wheat grass. What a disaster.

When I had removed the fresh tray it went for a forage in my near-ready-for-harvest trays. Decimated the whole lot of them.

Trampled, and pulled up, and rooted through. Totally useless to me now. So I took them all out, cleaned it up and decided on a break from growing the wheat grass until I can find a way to protect the trays.

Unhappy that I had taken away their/it’s meal ticket it found my seedlings. It ate all the brussles sprout and pack-choy seedlings I was planning on planting that day. Ate them down to the dirt of their pots. Thankfully I had already planted out my parsley and chives in my vegetable beds, otherwise I might have cried.

So I constructed these to protect my seedlings and hatchlings.

When we go fruit and veg shopping we go to a place that has boxes out the front you can use for free instead of bags. I always hunt for the polystyrene boxes as I plan to use them to grow salad greens for continual harvest. So I put all my remaining seedlings and newly planted seeds into one of them, and put the wire shelf from one of my mini-greenhouses over the top weighted down with some hardwood chunks.

Here is a tray of lettuce I am sprouting to grow, again covered with the wire shelf to protect it from savaging rodents.

So far it has all been successful, and they haven’t done anymore damage.