Cats and gardening don't mix

I don't have a cat but my next door neighbour does. Her garden is all grass so the cat can't find anywhere decent to do his business. This is where my garden comes in useful. Yesterday I sowed a row of carrots and parsnips but forgot to put a net over them. When I went on my tour of the garden this evening I found the carrot row had been scraped into a neat pile by the obliging moggy from next door. I literally have to cover everything with nets or cloches to prevent this happening. I started putting holly clippings between the rows hoping that would put him off but I ran out of holly. Does anyone have a solution to this problem or will I just have to carry on doing what I am already doing?

We also have visiting badgers and I once found a huge hole dug right in the middle of my beetroot row. I really don't have an answer to that one.

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Comment by Melinda Que_Linda on April 26, 2011 at 20:39: Ive covered my freshly sown beds with old prickly rose bush prunings.

In other areas I have serried ranks of sticks upright in the soil.

I have at least 5 separate cat entry points into the garden, I put lemon skins and chilli powder down.

It works for a few days, but I have to keep up with renewing it.

Comment by Debbie on April 26, 2011 at 21:16: I do rose prunings and sticks, like Melinda. And nets when I remember. And string between short sticks, a bit like cats cradle (is that where the name comes from?). You'd think they'd give up and go somewhere else, but no they seem to find the one bit I left.

Comment by Urban Eden Boutique on April 27, 2011 at 9:16: I had the same problem and on top of cleaning up after the cat I had to contend with it killing the nesting black birds in my tree! We blocked all the entrance points as we only have a small garden, however I have heard from several people that if you put a plastic bottle in the garden full of water they don't like it, I'm not sure how it works? maybe try it next to some freshly dug soil as that seems to be their favourite thing!

Comment by Caro on April 27, 2011 at 13:52: Ah, dear me, cats are the bane of my life. Like you, I don't own one, neither do I want to precisely because of the 'toilet' issue. I don't do animal poo and loathe finding the stuff in my veg patch. I have no way of closing off the garden as it's communal and I also have to contend with urban fox cubs (and don't get me started on the pigeons!). Until a dawn raider stole all my chicken wire, the beds were fenced round which worked extremely well. Last year I deployed bamboo skewers from Morrisons, strategically placed around my veg beds - cheap and effective for a bit of spot protection. This year I'm using old tennis balls on top of canes with netting thrown over, which appeals to my sense of economy, being both cheap and (partly) recycled. 3/4" mesh netting is currently £1.99 at my local pound shop for a 2m x 6m length. As for your badger, I have no suggestions; when I lived in Hampshire, one regularly turned over the dustbin to have a rootle inside. Perhaps the mesh would work to keep him at bay as well?

Caro xx

Comment by sweetpea lou on May 1, 2011 at 17:11: Don't get me started. Since we moved in 4 years ago we have discovered that 4 cats use our garden as their litter tray. Apart from not being able to do the slightest bit of gardening without gloves on, they have dug up seedlings and newly planted plants, they also flatten soft plants such as stipa and achilleas and lie on them in the sun! We did have a small veg patch but I started to worry about how hygienic it was and it was right in front of our patio doors so I got sick of staring at netting and chicken wire covering the beds. We've got an allotment now but the garden is still plagued. I tried gooseberry prunings which looked ridiculous spread about before the herbaceous perennials came through and didn't work they just pushed it aside. I wish I could suggest something but I'm loathe to spend money on the various products in catalogues, so I don't know if lion dung or the sonic scarers work. We've already had to spend £600 on a fence to keep the neighbours dogs out of the garden.

Comment by elaine rickett on May 1, 2011 at 19:54: We have tried a sonic scarer but found a cat lying down in front of it so that didn't work. My husband has a battery operated water pistol (we all know that cats don't like getting wet) - it does scare them off if your aim is good but they always come back.

Comment by Anna Winstanley on May 2, 2011 at 20:36: I particularly loathe the way cats scare off the birds in our garden. Whenever we see a cat in the garden, we run out the back door making as much noise as possible and behaving like crazy cat eating monsters. It does seem to scare them off for a while but the neighbours do give us some odd looks...

Comment by Caro on May 3, 2011 at 14:58: I've also used the water pistol technique - not on cats, but on pigeons! I was that fed up with them on my balcony last year that my son's old super-soakers were heaved out of the shed and given to visiting 6 and 4 year old nieces. Great fun and it worked (for a while).