Garlic, Garbage and Uninvited Guests

The weather has been so gloriously Autumnal for the past few weeks that I'm finding it difficult to believe that it's the shortest day in just three weeks - midwinter!  Mind you, after ending up at the Hill in the dark this afternoon, perhaps it's no so surprising after all.

I wanted to get the garlic in today.  I usually manage to get it planted in late Autumn, then it can get a good head of steam ready for Spring; although this year it didn't go in until January, and if I'm honest there seemed little difference in the end result.

So that formed basis of today's plan, along with clearing and digging another bed - also on the list is to chop down the raspberry canes (here they are on the right of the pic), and dig the last of the potatoes, but both the latter jobs will wait if needs be.

I got to the Hill and found Richard (three plots down) busy digging over his potato patch.  We had a chat before I busied myself with the fork, and got the garlic split into cloves and planted out.

Then I cleared some debris and rubbish and went to open the nearest dalek composter - it was full, so I moved on to the next.  This was full too, when I took the lid off, but this one was topped off by a mouse, blinking in the light.

We looked at one another for a quite a while until he eventually dipped down underneath the mound of courgette leaves, out of sight. "Excuse me." I said to him, and put the lid back on.

I turned round and called out, "Er, Richard - what do we think about mice in the compost heap? Good thing or bad thing?"

"Well, it depends on your opinion of mice, I suppose," he said - most unhelpfully - after a moment's consideration.

I imagine that the mouse was having a similar conversation deep in the dalek. "What do we think about humans taking the lid off the composter? Good thing or bad thing?"

I would think that the mouse consensus of opinion was that humans are a good thing, as the lid taken off the heap means adding more grub to the top.  As for me, I'm undecided, but I guess that they can stay as long as they remain good tenants.

I found a less obviously inhabited dalek to deposit the weeds into, and moved on to cutting down the raspberry canes.  However, I soon got in a tangle trying to differentiate between the Summer and Autumn varieties, and it was rapidly going dark; so I called it a day and I'll finish tackling them next time round.