Anyone following us on instagram might see various photos where I’ve put sticks and twigs all over the soil, so I thought I’d put down a bit of an explainer!

We have a regular visitor to our plot; a grey tabby cat.

It’s a friendly enough cat who occasionally comes over to say hello when we are there, and seems very curious about what we are upto on our allotment.

However, every time we put down a new bed for planting, he/she (sex undetermined at time of writing) thinks it’s a lovely new patch to roll around in, dig up, and occasionally use as a toilet (although to be fair, that could be the fox – more on him another day).

After a bit of research, I learned that putting branches and sticks down over the soil makes it a much less appealing proposition and we don’t find freshly dug holes in our beds with seeds and bulbs scattered all over the place the next time we return!

This method is a humane deterrent rather than anything that will harm our feline friend, and also has an added bonus of keeping me honest on my promises to keep the cherry tree pruned for a ready made store of branches and twigs!