HORSE MANURE, HARVESTING AND CATS

Another trip to get horse manure – this time three heavy bags of it – and I was ready to get started on the garden again.

The only negative was being struck by an energy-sapping head cold, which meant I was shattered last night and tonight after spreading all that manure.

I harvested the last of the carrots and potatoes, leaving only the parsnips left in the ground. With the colder nights starting to bite, it won’t be long before they come up to – hopefully they’ll last until Christmas.

Once again this weekend I’ve been turning the soil over in the planting areas, trimming back the dead plants and generally giving the garden a good platform to over-winter in a good condition.

This time I wasn’t followed around by a robin, which did surprise me given the huge amount of worms that I was ‘working’ with.

The bird population doesn’t seem to be visiting the house in any numbers I thought they would be, apart from the seemingly combined flocks of house and tree sparrows.

The blue and great tits have been making the most of the remaining sunflowers, foraging on the seeds.

I’ve not seen a blackbird for a few weeks, although I have heard them, while the evening often brings a large number of birds, including chaffinches and goldfinches, to the area with trees and bushes – which also contain one of my bird feeders.

I do wonder if the natural food supplies or the plethora of cats in a couple of the houses here are to blame for the lack of activity from the birds. I suspect it’s a bit of both, but hope that when the colder conditions begin, the birds do make the most of the food I provide for them.

Some of the cats – from a house that doesn’t look after them properly – seem to be making more of an effort to get into my garden around the feeders. I’m making sure that when I see them they are chased away, which doesn’t make too much of a difference.

Perhaps new tactics are required, which frustrates me because why should I, or any other nature lover, have to work at deterring cats from their garden?

It’s a dilemma that many people face and one I think needs addressing overall, particularly in my garden.

Let’s hope the natural food supplies keep the birds with enough food, before they have to dodge the cats to get food from my garden.