Rodent Damaged Squash!

Few things in the garden feel worst than walking through it to inspect the crops and find this kind of damage - 

The night before they were fine and untouched. 

I'm not sure what has done this overnight but my guess is either rats or squirrels (they could have done it early morning before I got up!). 

I'm gutted. Need to set some traps really and deal with it. 

Anyone else experience much pest damage at the moment?

Share your woes, it won't make me feel better but at least it'll be a problem shared! 

 

Beetroot Soup

Wednesday night I made beetroot soup.

When I was out in the garden I saw that the mice had been at my beetroot again (see this post from a previous year) So I decided to pull up what was still edible and make a soup for tea. 

A simple soup consisting of about 6 beetroots, a couple of carrots, a red onion, loads of garlic, some stock and a cooking apple. 

The onion and garlic were sweated first to soften, then the other veg were added for a bit, the stock cube and water was poured on after about 15 minutes. I left this to simmer, prepared some dough to prove for rolls and went to bath the kids (the dough was mixed in the bread maker earlier though!)!

I left it to simmer for an hour then blended it with a stick blender. 

I served it with rolls on the side and some crumbled feta in the soup. 

Lovely! 

Now to take care of those mice in the garden, I have a cunning plan....