Gardening can sometimes feel like a battle with the various pests that threaten carefully tended crops, but some of the biggest pest problems I have are from the creatures I’ve invited to live with me. Chickens can wreak havoc in a bed of salad in a matter of minutes so an impregnable barrier surrounds the vegetable garden. Seed beds and newly planted seedlings are particularly attractive to cats so I take a range of measures, albeit with limited success. My newly transplanted lettuce seedlings are covered with netting and the pea shoots are interspersed with twigs, but both have been treated as a challenge by these furry terrors. A quiet afternoon’s reading lying on an airbed last summer was ruined in a single bound by a boisterous tabby with sharp claws.
Yesterday, I sowed a variety of salad leaves and covered them with fleece to avoid the carefully raked soil being used as a litter tray. Fennel has other ideas though and thinks I’ve made her a cosy day bed.
I feel for you! Although the ones that survive become super hardy! My mate has the same problem. His cats follow him to the allotment and think that any rows of new seedlings are comfortable ‘cat’ beds not vegatable beds.
I want to live a free and independent life. Self sufficient and using my own skills and initiatives to live how I desire!!
