It is not a disaster....

but it is rather frustrating and curious. I am referring to my two great obsessions at the moment. Gardening and cooking. So the garden......(more about the cooking another time).

The garden in growing wonderfully, in fact looking back at photos of the raised garden bed at the beginning of it's life it really has transformed. However the local cats and I are having a few problems over bounderies. There are several cats in the local vicinity and all take full advantage of the large garden toilet we have. When we started creating the veggie patch they were delighted, so to allow the seeds to actually grow - and not be scattered all over the place we enclosed the bed in netting. Not that attractive but certainly did work. No longer did we have poo deposits in the well dug ground. However now the vegetables have done their thing and grown, I needed better access for the picking and so on, so the netting came off - all was well for a while!
I have been dutifully clearing up the poo for several days, and have tried various methods to deter such antics. Childrens windmills - I now have four and they look great, plus can be easily moved to the spot of requirement. Then I read about trying twine or string with strips of plastic bags tied onto. Oh and of couse have put in the bamboo sticks and sprinkled the curry powder, cayenne pepper, chilli flakes. Need to start drinking coffee at home so I can use the coffee grounds in this mixture.
But all of this is to no avail. And at the death of a beautiful row of radishes just peaking through the earth I have caved in! The radishes were tossed around, covered in earth (along with the lettuce seedling) scattered, and looked very very sad.

So the netting has returned, at least until the latest seeds start to grow. I actually have no idea what will grow as it was part of my frustration at the attacks that I have just thrown in loads of all the seeds I have. Now they have been mixed and scattered by the cats it will be very interesting!

The garden is however still a joy, there have been three broad bean pickings and several of brocoli, plus some caulifower (all rather good with a great pie). I eat at least one strawberry each time I'm in the garden - but here I am fighting the ants and the slugs who seem to be beating me to them. They seem to start to ripen but not quite finish then suddenly are ruined and I did have a moment when I was about to pop a strawberry in my mouth when an ant came out of it!

Leeks are looking good as are the tomotoes. Rhubarb also growing well - not sure when I supposed to pick that though. Raspberry, blueberry, sunfloweres, sweetpeas, lettuce, herbs, cabbage, rocket, peas......I'm quite enjoying this.