I currently have 10 vegetable plots at home along with my 6 plots at work. This is the time of year where we gardeners are trying to get a head start on our growing times, beating our previous years records and generally looking for any excuse to be in touch with nature.
Apparently we humans are not the only ones wanting to get up close and personal with the soil or what is growing in it.
Mr McGregor had cause to be angry with Peter Rabbit and his constant nibbling of the prize cabbages.
This week I came to work to find my pot of parsley mowed down to the top of the pot, the job was so neat it was hard to tell there had ever been anything planted in it. When you are watching a pot grow you know what stage every little leaf is at, you know when you are going to harvest and more often than not its for a particular occasion.
Consoling myself after a bad day in the office (so to speak)at least I knew I had back up parsley in the home plot.
I headed home before dark looking forward to my daily ritual of a stroll through my patch en route to the hen house. You know how it goes, pulling a few weeds here, checking on new seedlings over there, having a squeeze of the broad beans that are plumping up and secretly feel a bit proud of my achievements.
However this was not the case on this particular day.
The first sign things were not as they should be were the cabbage seedlings lying on the ground, further inspection reveals the villain had rearranged my coriander row, completely destroyed my carrot and beetroot seedlings, and removed the entire straw layer around what was once a neat and tidy asparagus bed. Can you imagine the despair I felt all I could think was I'm now two weeks behind in my carrot and beetroot production, and oh my once healthy row of coriander is now but a shell of its former self and where is the parsley?
Two can play this game I thought so I waited for dusk and stalked up on my feathered friends with a pair of scissors. You know that saying ‘you can’t fly on one wing’?
Sorted!
(Note to readers. No pain was inflicted on the birds in question by simply clipping the tip off one wing the bird is unable to fly over the large caged area provided.... well for a few weeks anyway.)
