What's happening today 2020

Fig leafing out in the greenhouse.

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I love clean new leaves

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This guy and his girlfriend thought they would spend winter under the fig row cover. Releasing birds is always fun!

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My new kitty Wilson (as in WILSON in Castaway), also black, likes to dig tall plants out of pots. Nothing like finding your palm in the floor and a heap of dirt nearby. So far, hasn’t mistaken them as a litter box, but there’s always tomorrow… here he is resting on my back while i look out the back door. He’s very resourceful

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I had one that DID use large plant pots as a litter box

I don’t know if that might be helpful for that particular cat situation, but here is what seems to have worked for cat(s?) using my garden beds for litter box this year :unamused:
I started a new garden last year, and last year there wasn’t all that much to get the cats interested, I guess. Although it did discover - and use - my winter “cold frame” any time it was left uncovered!!! This year, I put in two long veggie beds and a couple other planting places (for flowers). Veggie beds in a no-dig manner, with a thick layer of compost. Apparently THAT was irresistible, and grabbing a big chunk of cat poo when planting something is about as amusing as finding your palm on the floor. Never mind toxoplasma risk in edibles, either.
I tried cayenne, found the cayenne’d area tilled by little paws two mornings later.
What finally seems to have solved the problem was plastic bird netting laid flat directly on the soil. It’s black and fine (cheap stuff from the first big box store I ventured into), so it doesn’t really show - as far as esthetics go. A bit of a pain to interplant, or to take care and cut openings and tease out plants once they grow a little larger. But worth it. I guess it’s unpleasant on the paws or something? I never found evidence that the bugger got tangled in it really either (I was a little worried about that at first).

Even if not for your indoor planter situation, maybe the trick will help someone else who has adventurous cats frequenting their garden.

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@lavender, reading about your cold frame made me LOL! I tried something like that for a gardening spot that my chickens kept scratching up. Eventually they did manage to unearth the netting, although I made it through most of the summer. I long abandoned loose mulch around my fruit trees, as the chickens toss it almost gleefully behind them. I’m using live mulch like comfrey or flowers near the base, while trying to keep the center clear with pebbles.

Oh the things we do for our animals :smirk: Bless their hearts

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Maybe put a cucumber or zucchini near or on top of the pot.

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Oh my! As a team, I’d give them an 8.5 out of 10 for acrobatics. Are they thinking its a snake?

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I never know what cats are thinking.

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That would be my guess? And if so, it’s amazing how deep that instinct is embedded in our mammalian psyche. Almost stepping on a rattler brings out similar reaction in humans, maybe minus acrobatics :laughing: Don’t ask me how I know…

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I watched True Grit recently, and she slept inside a rope circle in the wild. I was thinking the same on that.

Tonight my hound dog talked to us in some wonderful weird moan while we watched tv. You just never know what they are thinking.

:grinning:

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Cats are entertaining

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Here is what novelist William Faulkner wrote:

In fact, I rate mules second only to rats in intelligence, the mule followed in order by cats, dogs, and horses last–assuming of course that you accept my definition of intelligence: which is the ability to cope with environment: which means to accept environment yet still retain at least something of personal liberty.

The cat is third, with some of the same qualities but a weaker, punier creature; he neither toils nor spins, he is a parasite on you but he does not love you; he would die, cease to exist, vanish from the earth (I mean, in his so-called domestic form) but so far he has not had to. (There is the fable, Chinese I think, literary I am sure: of a period on earth when the dominant creatures were cats: who after ages of trying to cope with the anguishes of mortality–famine, plague, war, injustice, folly, greed–in a word, civilised government–convened a congress of the wisest cat philosophers to see if anything could be done: who after long deliberation agreed that the dilemma, the problems themselves were insoluble and the only practical solution was to give it up, relinquish, abdicate, by selecting from among the lesser creatures a species, race optimistic enough to believe that the mortal predicament could be solved and ignorant enough never to learn better. Which is why the cat lives with you, is completely dependent on you for food and shelter but lifts no paw for you and loves you not; in a word, why your cat looks at you the way it does.)

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image

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Perfect expressions!

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Katie - completely not about fruit . . . I like that little ‘nicknack shelf’ you have! New kitten is cute, too! - karen

About those cucumbers . . . . Good thing that Sigmond Freud is not on this forum . . . just sayin’. :open_mouth:

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My Persian lime lost so many leaves, after coming indoors. It is reassuring to know that it will rebound. (Thanks, @mamuang) I am keeping the heat to a minimum in the sunroom, where it is spending this winter beside the little potted pomegranate. As I mentioned in another post, I try to mist them a couple times each day.

They both have so many blossoms! The pom is way too small to support fruit . . . its little branches still very thin and fragile. But, the lime is hearty and if some of the fruit holds on - I will let a few mature.

I don’t understand how the fruit sets while the plant is indoors and not visited by pollinators. ? There is an overhead ceiling fan, which rotates on low. Is it just the circulating air and occasional shaking of the plant, when I move it, that is enough to pollinate the flowers?

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My Thai lime tree normally forms seedless fruit so pollination might not be a required factor for yours either. In fact, it’s setting some now too!

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