On Wed, 29 Mar 2006 09:41:16 -0500, Penelope Periwinkle
wrote:


It looks like we've had our last cold snap, so I was moving some of my
seedlings out to the cold frame for hardening off. I planned to
transplant some of my early tomatoes into larger pots, and I set them
on the potting table as I carried the others out back to the cold
frame.

As we came back from the back yard, we being the Puppies O'Thunder and
me, we startled a large black and white Tom that insists on courting
my 16 year old, spayed-for-fifteen-years, cat. He dashed under the
car, then scrambled across the potting table and over the fence. I
could only watch in horror as he kicked the tray with my early
tomatoes in it off the table, and it landed upside down on the ground.

Almost all the seedlings are broken just above the soil line. Out of
twenty four early tomatoes, I know have six, and one of those might
not make it. I buried the damaged part of the stem, but it was droopy
this morning.

Two and a half months of tending and scheming and delighting in even
tiny increments of growth, and it's almost all gone in the blink of an
eye. Oh, it's not really the cat's fault, he's just doing what cats
do; but if I could find the owner that allows an unneutered cat to
roam free, I'd throttle them.

How sad and frustrating. I, too, had a cat problem a couple of weeks
ago but not anywhere near as serious as yours. Despite advice to the
contrary (too late) I planted peas. I'm using the tomato cages for
them to climb on. Shortly after I'd planted there was this little
orange cat out there digging in the good dirt to do the other thing
that cats do. I scatted it away, poked the seeds that had been heaped
to the top back down in the dirt. Next day there was the danged cat
again happily digging away again. Poke, poke again with the now
germinated peas. I finally got some chicken wire to cover the pea
plot. It was pretty funny watching the cat the first time s/he came
around to use the facilities after I'd put the wire down. Very
puzzled cat.
Sue



Penelope