Meet Tigger, the Garden from Scratch’s resident moggy. He’s an enormous RSPCA rescue cat who joined me on my 15th birthday, and has been jumping on to my bed at impossible hours of the morning ever since. Tigger is affectionate, demanding, huge. The last cannot be exaggerated enough. He recently scared off a door-to-door charity fundraiser who, only seeing his silhouette at the top of the stairs, thought he was a dog.
Tigger is a stately, civilised cat. However, since moving to the Garden from Scratch, he has been joined by a number of little friends. There’s Rupert, a Tigger-in-miniature, who models his character on Just William. Then there’s Lenka, the Polish cat with a tail like a raccoon, who worships Rupert. And then there are a number of large, grumpy cats who mark their territory in nearby gardens and sit in wait for other cats to trespass.
Cats didn’t really fit the remit of Fennel and Fern until we met Rupert and Lenka. But since these kittens appeared on the scene, the subject has gained a greater urgency. They may be sweet, comical and hilariously enthusiastic, but they also treat the Garden from Scratch as an enormous edible playground. Freshly dug soil is a fantastic litter tray. Bushes are simply feline flagpoles advertising the latest scent (eau de toilette gains a whole new meaning as the bush slowly turns brown after weeks of spraying). Wigwams ready for sweet peas are just glorious pieces of climbing apparatus. And freshly planted tulip bulbs are buried treasure demanding to be dug up.
Our biggest pest. While their owners gush about how adorable they are (and they are adorable), we are secretly fuming. I have turned into one of those terrifying women who wave brooms and shout as I see Rupert attempting to urinate on a freshly planted garlic clove. I don’t have a pink headscarf or a trug yet, but there’s time. Because the trouble is, while horse manure sends pumpkins into paroxysms of ecstasy, cat manure is dangerous. It can spread toxoplasmosis, which can be fatal.
After a few failed attempts at pest control involving orange peel and a water squirter, we have resorted to stretching pond netting over willow wigwams and pegging it to the ground so the cats have no access to the vegetable patch. But indoors, seeds are sprouting and potatoes are chitting, and it won’t be long before the blighters start digging up tubers and spraying lettuces. I have spent my life fighting slugs, flies and all the normal pests. But cats? Anyone got any advice on how to fight back?
