This is Jack. Enter Joke Here.
Jack is my favorite cat. We have two other cats, Kali Ma and Bonnie. Bonnie is clearly Tom’s cat. Scratch that. Bonnie is Paul’s cat. She snuggles with him at night and takes some of the most contorted positions just so she can sit on his lap. Kali Ma is my cat because she doesn’t like anyone that doesn’t tell her she’s pretty on a regular basis.
Tell me I'm Pretty!
I’m the sucker that tells her she’s pretty. And in return she comes over with her razor claws to make biscuits on my lap and right when the drop of drool is about to fall she shakes her head and sprays me with it.
Bonnie, aka Naughty Bon Bons
As much as I love my cats the one thing I cannot stand is cat shit in the garden. This is one of the reasons my kitties are indoor-only kitties. I’ve given up my orchid obsession in exchange for keeping them out of my veggies. Bonnie in particular is the worst one. We tried having an indoor plant until Bonnie decided to poop in it. Repeatedly. Until it died.
Of course keeping my cats in the house doesn’t help with neighborhood cats shitting in my veggies. Enter our secret weapon.
Don't mess with me or I'll cut you!
OK, you probably can’t take her serious looking like that. But here she is on the hunt.
Don't bother me I think I found it!
Unless they are her animals she wants to kill anything that comes into our yard. She spends all day with our cats but strange cats she doesn’t hesitate to chase out of the yard. Cats aren’t that dumb and usually never come back after only one good chase.
Not everyone has a secret weapon though. Fortunately there’s a really easy way to keep cats out of your beds. It can be a bit time consuming at first and until plants grow in it’s not the most attractive look, but it does work with good success.
The cats stay out of these beds
Sticks. Lots of sticks about 6-8″ long stuck in the ground upright about 6″ apart. Cats are too lazy to scratch around them. If you get cheap or free mulch from a tree service it will usually have a lot of these sticks. Unfortunately sticks don’t work for squirrels (because they truly are the spawn of Satan) but for cats if you use sticks you won’t have to worry about finding kitty rocha in your patch of carrots.
Love it! Damned cats. I use chicken wire in on the soil of the small flower beds flanking the guest house door. But I’ll be trying sticks in the veggie patch. So recyclable!
Great idea! I think I’ll be looking around for some sticks too!
Good idea. Also, I accidentally discovered that cats won’t raid the catnip if you plant it next to petunias. I guess it messes with their smell. 🙂
I also use the plastic nursery trays upside-down over bare/seeded dirt. The light can get in, but cats can’t dig. Doesn’t help if your cat likes to lay down tho’ … lol
This is great! What garden is that in the lower pic – doesn’t look like yours.
It’s the Vallejo People’s Garden which we were helping with. They aren’t your typical community garden as people in the neighborhood don’t rent plots. Instead they grow huge amounts of food for the local homeless shelters and soup kitchens.
Sticks in the ground definitely helps with nosy cats wanting to dig everywhere and leave presents behind. It does not stop our hens from going wherever they like, mind you, but that is kind of a net positive since most of what we grow loves chicken poo in a big way.
Oh, and our Lucy is a drool sprayer bar none. Purrrrrrrrrr, and that one huge droplet, and then she has to go and shake her head and hit everything in a ten foot radius. Skillz, she has ’em.
Having used this method for many, many years my advice is pull up the sticks when the plants are past being dug up (or covered up) as I have been stabbed more that once when harvesting crops. Small price to pay for foiling my cats ;-))
Julie,
Great advice! Thanks for sharing!
We apparently have dumb neighborhood cats, because our dog happily chases them and the darn things still come back. To keep them out of our beds we do a couple thing. One, we put down the cement reinforcement panels that we use as trellis material directly on top of the soil. The squares are small enough that they really can’t comfortably dig, but they can still walk on it. So to keep them from doing that, after we seed a bed we cover it with bird netting. It only needs to be a few inches off the ground to work. I usually have to adjust it back off the ground a few time, but it works double duty to keep the birds from pulling the seeds and seedlings and keeping the cats out. I think their paws get tangled in the netting, which they obviously don’t like.
Lily, those are great suggestions as well! Especially the bird netting. We have crows that like to pick at our peas. Makes me crazy.
We have a ton of feral cats and I have found that, in addition to your above suggestion, giving the cats somewhere more desirable to poop like a sand pile in the corner of the yard works great too if you have the room. Kind of the same idea as the one you used for keeping your dogs from digging in the garden.
Also a great suggestion! Thanks for sharing!