Tomato glut

There were three creatures hard at work in the potager today. Well, Artur was dozing lightly. But I was busy tomato picking; and the effing mole rat was eating the spinach plants.

Oh yes, there I was working my way down the rows, when I saw the top New Zealand perpetual spinach plant shaking like mad.

The mole rat is back.

And my instinct to grab the little ugly critter by the scruff of its neck and feed it to the cat was irresistable.

But how to catch it?  I should have gone for a sharp think nasty bit of wire. But I didn’t have one to hand. I looked around and found a nice chestnut stake, sharpened to a point.

I’m sure Artur looked on this absurd human sneaking up on a shaking plant with a raised stake and thought : this is not going to go well.

And it didn’t. I stabbed and stabbed at the ground around the plant, even lifting up the next ones in the rows – all denuded of roots – but the mole rat has escaped my clutches.

Again. Grr. I guess I can unplug the electronic repellant that obviously isn’t repelling any more.

At least I have a good clutch of tomatoes.

A glut in fact.  So they are going into the oven for a good slow roast. It will win me some time before I think what to do with them. I’m too busy to be in the kitchen making tomato sauce: there are bulbs to plant. And a mole rat to hunt.