Stood in the freezing cold garden last Sunday loading up the propagator with chili, pepper and tomato seeds (was particularly excited about some expensive Naga seeds I had bought). Carefully labeled everything and placed in the sunniest spot in the house. Sadly, said sunny spot also a favourite of my cats - cue propagator, seeds and soil on the floor. Don't know what is what now! :-(
Cats and greenhouses are not a good combination. My neighbours have a number of cats so I have mess covers for the door when they are open in the spring . Have you managed to salvage the seed although it is now mixed ? Dave
What a shame Sterile. But if you have managed to scoop up the seeds in compost they should be OK - they're all pretty tough. You won't be in any doubt about which ones are the tomatoes - tomatoes just smell like tomatoes from leaf #1. If it's all gone wrong - there's plenty of time to resow. And you've learned something about the cat - learned that lesson 35 years ago
That's a lousy thing to happen, Sterile. I must admit that has happened to me in the past when sowing in tray. You go from being on Cloud 9 to Zero and worse when you realised what's happened. I got two cats and all cats like to help but so far they've not been the cause of anything like that. I've just bought two propagators [today] and sown 3 kinds of tomatoes, sweet pepper, cucumber, delphiniiums, Rubeckia and another four kind of flowers in them. There's a bed of grit in them to retain moisture and give them weight to make them stable. Nothing is ever cat-proof, I guess, but strange as it sounds my cats know the rules and also their nine lives are not a guarantee if they cause damage!! Anyway, I wish you luck with what you've got left.
Thank you all! No damage to seeds, they are all there I just do not know what is planted where anymore. I still have some of the expensive seeds and will plant a couple of those separately to ensure that I nurture the right ones! Spent ages believing that I had some thriving Nagas last year and gave the special treatment only to discover that they were black pearls
Not quite the same thing, but a local blackbird went through a phase of raiding my seed trees when it thought I wasn't looking. I solved the problem by securing clear plastic lids over the trays, with some ventilation holes in.
I'm so sorry to hear of your predicament. Maybe you can make a little money out of it by repotting the seeds and run a little book amongst your firends on which plants come up in which pots. We are quite lucky. Oscar the cat lives in our propagator and guards our seeds and plants. Even in the spring when the propagator is crammed with seed trays and his space is restricted he is very careful about not disturbing them. I hope all your plants give you lots of pleasure.
This thread is pretty old but we have all done something similar. I used to be into growing begonias and somehow got a lobelia seed in amongst them, it took me months to realise why one of my begonias had grown enormous and didn't resemble the others :o There was a thread on here a couple of years ago about someone's plastic greenhouse blowing over and getting all the seedlings mixed up. Anyway later in the season he posted a photo of his tomato plant and wondered why it hadn't got any side shoots, flowers or fruit. It was a weed (fat hen) he was growing all nicely staked up, fed and watered in a grow bag
