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Thursday 28 February 2013

My winning recipe this year...

for not harvesting a bumper crop of...
cat crap.

Employ pricks.


Photo's taken yesterday of my veg plot.
Every year at this time I get a bustle on, I hoe, I dig, I weed.
I plan, I plant, I sow.
My spirits lift, I'm happy...
Well that is until I plunge my hands into the soil and
lucky dip like, I pull out...
no, not a plum... a poo.
My happy disposition then turns ugly; my thoughts flirt with choices of weapon.
Pop gun... I've got enough corks!
Lion dung (didn't really work).
Water pistol... high velocity...
trouble with that, as I know to my cost... 
by the time you've pumped the blooming thing up, 
the cat is wiggling its bum in another's garden.
The days of saying to Lettice
'Cats!' 
have long gone, due to her being deaf and doolally.
I bang on the window and look out menacingly, bristly and mean.
  Strolling off at speed, Cheshire cat-like they smile to themselves,
thinking under cover of darkness we'll help with the hoeing and fertilising.
And in fairness they do, they definitely do, do
in humongous amounts.



Holly that's the secret.



Sticks... No not to throw!



Rhubarb peeking out from its
Princess and the Pea depth of good honest home-grown compost.


My mini pond where last year I dug a large plastic pot into the ground and waited
like an old dear at a frog bus-stop.  And low and behold, like buses
two turned up together.

This year I await the quiver and wobble of frogspawn,
plus being the proud owner of a larger pond, I may even get newts.


Things sprouting in the propagator...
slow to germinate.



Not so the anemones, just about to bloom.

Every early Spring, when the garden for very little effort looks well
loved and cared for.  I vow this year will be different...
I WILL KEEP on top of it.
The slumbering slugs wake up and slither and slime over, under and round.
The Weald reverberates with my manic war-cry.
Of all God's creatures, slugs are the one's I wonder about the most...
Why?
Snails, okay they feed the thrushes and the French.
Slugs feed the blackbirds, trouble is I'd need four and twenty
to make an appreciable difference.
Forty thousand frogs might just wreak havoc.
 Then we've got the arrival of those brown slugs, 
the size of a babies arm, coming over looking for work. 

Now where did I put my secret Semtex supply?


10 comments:

  1. Damned lucky here, damned lucky - I just employ a couple of hundred seasonal native gardener chappies to chase away the cats and slugs. Need to have two shifts of course, week on and week off, otherwise they tend to fall asleep at night. Damned lucky. Hate slugs, always prepared to ride out of my way to let my elephant squish them underfoot. Occasionally get a gardener of course but that can't be helped. Slimy things. Slugs that is, not gardeners.

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    Replies
    1. Have Houdah Will Travel... Any chance you'd elephant trek to here?

      LLX

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  2. It's not only the veg' we've to look forward to, but all those wretched beasts that would feed themselves on it FIRST. Ah well.

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    1. I've always been 'organical', my hippy past I suppose. I do get severely tested at the onslaught; my default positon is G & T gardening operated from the hammock.

      LLX

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  3. I use rose branches sans leaves placed strategically and it works for cats and squirrels. Of course they get me too occasionally but a few scratches are worth it:)

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    1. Good idea, trouble is, there's not a rose in sight here. It's all wild gardening, compost-making, the ancient hedge positively vibrating with noise, bumble bee house, areas left roughty-toughty for hedgehogs (well that's my excuse). A general air of decadent and decay... I just love it.

      If I get crabby with the world (and I do) I dig. So good for the soul.

      LLX

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  4. The Women Who Glare at Cats - I've seen that film.
    I shouldn't tell you this, but my wicked aunt swore by a bucket of water - a quick cold drenching shower made the moggie's keep their distance for ever after.

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    1. I'm fully aware I've probably alienated shed loads of cat lovers... although must say, I do fancy myself in a Davy Crockett hat.

      LLX

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  5. You do make me smile but I so know where you are coming from my small garden is plagued by next doors cats and their ;gifts; For a while I did chuck the presents over the fence (after dark) but there are so many that I have given up that game. I have tried most cures, including borowing my daughters dog but the cats just look at him as if to say 'too late' as they hop onto the fence and for a while my garden looked like a fruit stall as someone said that orange/citrus peel would work - but no!! I tried sticks but they seem to find a way to get into the mesh of sticks!! The best I have found so far is bits of this last years christmas tree - I always have a real tree and cut it to pieces and found sticking these branches into the bare ground patches has so far fooled the cats - the only problem is I don't have enough to cover all the bare ground patches in my garden. If you come up with any other ideas I would love to hear.

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    Replies
    1. Crumbs Anna, you must have a large, small garden. The holly seems to be working okay, so far! The next onslaught is from the slugs when I plant out the seedlings, it's then I really ask myself why? I don't know about you... I'm not giving up without a fight!

      LLX

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