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.
