Monday 16 May 2011

I blamed the cat...

 It might be obvious from the lack of posts here in recent weeks that I have become a little despondant with our garden. You see, we went away for a week at Easter to visit family. I left in good spirits. I was up to date with sowing seeds, the potatoes were in the ground and unbelievably there wasn't a weed in sight. Garden Dad had even finished laying weed fabric and bark chip in the front bed and around the fruit bushes and apple trees. All was well in our garden and I was confident that when we returned there would be some lovely green shoots in the greenhouse and the raised beds.

But, when we returned, there were numerous casualties. Firstly, a mouse had discovered our seeds and tucked into a feast while we were away. I sowed 102 peas and only 4 survived the mouse! Not a single squash or courgette seed was left behind by the mouse to grow! And the mouse was not dining alone. No. While he was tucking into the greenhouse seeds, the wood pigeons were enjoying their own feast of newly appearing brassicas from the raised beds.

Shamefully, my first instinct was to the blame the cat that has been using our garden as a toilet. I mean, if he is going to use our garden for his personal business he could at least scare away the mice and wood pigeons! For all cat lovers out there however, I have since admitted that I had some part to play in the destruction of our crops by my failure to close the greenhouse door and put netting over our brassica seeds.

Sadly, for many of the greenhouse plants that managed to escape the greedy little mouse, the sun did its worst and despite the best efforts of our friends to water our plants daily, many were left scorched. We returned from our lovely week away to a graveyard of seedlings and all my optimism turned to despondancy.

This past weekend however, I have made friends with my garden again and optimism has returned. With a bit of work we once again have a greenhouse filled with seedlings and there is hope for some homegrown vegetables later in the year and conseqently for some frequent posting here.

1 comment:

  1. It's easy to loose interest... rain, cold, wind, rain, cold, wind.... little bit of sun makes all the difference

    ReplyDelete