I quit

[desperance]

I've really loved growing chillies, these last few years - but with these cats in the house, I guess there's just no point trying. They've just trashed an entire windowsill's-worth, five full plants. Taken in conjunction with all the earlier damage, it's going to leave me with effectively no harvest this year, and a whole heap of resentment. Plus a staircase strewn with compost, which I ought to deal with but I'm too depressed to face dragging the hoover round at this time of night.

I should probably not try again with the chillies next year. But fuck, I'm going to miss them.

Comments

[athenais.livejournal.com]

Oh, I am sorry. I've had a couple of entries like this, the heartbreak of pets destroying my garden or my seedling trays. I did, in fact, quit gardening seven years ago. I have roses but nothing else; the dog never destroys those and the cat isn't interested.

[julesjones]

There are ways around this, but they involve money and carpentry, and are liable to involve protest from the cats.

Something like this:
http://www.twowests.co.uk/TwoWestsSite/product/WSS.htm
actually fastened to the window frame so the little bastards can't knock the whole thing off, and with only the top shelf in use for plants, can be fairly effective if the problem is that they want to sit on the windowsill. If the problem is that they think it's great fun to destroy the plants, you'll need the heavy duty plastic cover as well, and/or a sheet of rigid plastic fastened behind the plants (better to have slots for it to drop into for easy removal, rather than screwed to the wall).

[fjm.livejournal.com]

My thought was to fix them higher in the window.

[julesjones]

Yup -- this is one way to do it that doesn't involve having to build a shelf from scratch yourself. Hanging baskets are good as well, but only if there isn't anywhere nearby that makes a good launch pad for trapeze artists.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Yup, but the shape of the windows - which are embrasures rather than simple casements - would effectively mean building from scratch anyway; I couldn't conceivably buy anything to fit. And any such shelf would be out of my reach (from the floor) but not out of the cats' (from the sill below), and for sure they'd haul themselves up, just to see; and then I'm not sure how much better off I am...

Sorry to sound relentlessly negative; just that at the moment, I am relentlessly negative...

[julesjones]

It's difficult to suggest things when I don't know what the site looks like, because of things like embrasures. But "too high to water" can be dealt with for a hanging basket, if there is somewhere above the window to attach a bracket with a HiLo:
http://www.twowests.co.uk/TwoWestsSite/product/HILO.htm

I know how *I'd* deal with it -- but then I have no compunction about shouting at cats in Afrikaans in order to establish the pecking order. :->

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Ah, but see, I don't know Afrikaans (tho' just enough to be nodding here, yup, that'd be shouty...).

Also, shouting doesn't do so much with these two. They just kind of look at me, y'know...?

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

I don't know if this would work for chilies, but hanging pots tend to survive around cats okay.

[fjm.livejournal.com]

One of my cats tried swinging on a hanging pot. Once.

[janetmk.livejournal.com]

Bummer. But it's worth trying again using one of the suggestions above or maybe even something as simple as a shelf attached halfway up the window.

Human ingenuity just might triumph over feline perversity.

[danjite.livejournal.com]

Heh, heh... you said "But fuck"... heh, heh.