Crops and cats

Every year. Every year we have this fight. Who’s in charge here?

For a week the cat has had the perfect snoozing spot in a basket in a far corner of the potting shed. Out of the way but present in a snoring wheezy lung sort of way.

We have each had our allotted spots. And there is even an affectionate meeting on the chaise longue a few times each morning.

But so far I have had the run of the room and it is my plant factory after all.

Today I sowed extra heleniums, gaura, red clover and tomato seeds.

I work on the bench facing south, in the sunshine and with all my tools, compost and equipment at hand.

I can easily get into the perfect rhythm of filling seed trays, topping with compost, tamping down, sowing, covering with a thin coating of vermiculite, placing in a protected tray of water (protected from the cat who will drink anything – even grubby water with floaty bits of soil) and then moving everything onto the bench on the north side of the shed. Labelled of course.

It’s getting crowded over there.

I have to shove things up, move them about and then stand back and admire my handiwork.

I was working away at this task this morning when I realized the creature had stirred. He climbed out of his basket, staggered onto the floor and then started pacing about.

It’s the signal.

And I have to move fast. He wants to be part of the action.  In a trice he usually leaps up onto the bench and demands some space. Of which there is  precisely none for a cat.  (I refuse to descend to cliché of there being not enough room to swing a cat.)

If I haven’t whisked a tray out of the way he’ll be on the bench and sleeping on my seedlings and crushing my plants.

Cross? I’m not cross, I’m just disappointed. Why can’t he stay put? We fight this out every year and of course, the cat always wins. I’m such a softie.