Cat poo in veggie patch

[strawberryjelly]

Re. the outbreak of ecoli- I am wondering how safe it is to grow vegg ies in my raised bed which has become a cat latrine.

depsite putting netting over it, the buggers have tunnelled thier way in and crapped. Lots of times.

I have removed it but with the rain etc some may still have soaked into the soil.

If i grow anything are we at risk from toxoplasmosis or ecoli?

I am thoroughly sick of neighours cats crapping

grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

if you are reading this and own a cat- get a bloody cat litter and train your cats!

[DooinMeCleanin]

Can't we please, please have a poo topic so I can hide it? Please?

StrawberryJelly, post on one of the many hundreds of other poo threads. You'll have plenty of support there.

In answer to your question though I very much doubt the cats have e-coli. They'd be very sick cats if they did and would currently be shitting only in a crate at the vets. Only 2% of cats at anyone time have the infectious stage of Toxoplasmosis. It is very unlikely to cause harm to people unless you are pregnant or have an immune deficiancy. However if you wash your veg, it will be fine and all those nasty germs will be gone. Vegetables cannot contract Toxoplasmosis.

Cats use litter trays and the great out doors. This is perfectly legal. They have a legal right to roam. They don't understand the concept of your property and theirs. It's all just land to them. Buy some lion poo pellets or a sonic cat scarer.

Someone will be along in a minute to tell you to use cayenne or chilli pepper. This is harmful to cats and could cause them serious permanant damage. regular pepper and lemon peelings are fine, they don''t harm the cats and are quite effective.

[strawberryjelly]

If you had other people's cats crapping in your beds, destroying £££s worth of plants and seeds you might not be quite so keen to defend them. Not to mention the yuckiness of having to clear it up.

How's about if i came and crapped in your garden?

Don't please tell me where i can post. This was a post about hygiene- not simply about nuisance value.

Wehave a sonic cat scarer. it isn't working.

I have spent a fortune on anti-cat pellets etc such as you describe.

why should Ihave to do all of this because people can't be bothered to train cats- or let them out in the first place? None of my neighbours- whose cats defacate in my garden- have litter trays.

[Roflharris79]

Simply washing veg will not kill toxoplasmosis, or any other pathogenon on its surface.
The cooking process however will.
Toxoplasmosis poses a negligible risk of illness normally, but can pose a risk if you are pregnant or suffering from a deficiency of the immune system.

Cat shite is more of a deeply unpleasant inconvenience than a health hazard. Perhaps someone could invent cat-nappies?

[plipplops]

Wee in your garden (probably not directly on your veg though). It really does keep them away - my sis has a designated jug in her loo (think only a select few know what it's for) as her and her DH weren't really up for weeing outside. You'll have to reapply after rain but that's the case with loads of the repellers, and it's free too!

[peanutdream]

orange peel and citronella apparently. i held some orange peel in front of my cats nose and she backed off violently.

[shodatin]

I've always stuck twigs in the bare soil of the veg patch - no room for cat bums.

[EightiesChick]

I've tried orange peel and that did seem to have some effect. Probably can't keep them out of the whole garden that way but you could protect the veg patch.

[throckenholt]

the best way to stop cats is putting something spikey on the soil for a while (eg rose prunings). They find somewhere else after a few tries.

[Deux]

Thoroughly agree with the sharp and spikey objects in veg patch to stop cats. It's the only thing that's worked effectively for me.

Cuttings of thorny plants laid on the soil and also stuck vertically into the soil is a great deterrent. You need to cover enough of the soil so that they can't squat down.

I also take small garden canes and cut them into pieces with the secateurs and shove them in the soil vertically. They don't like it up 'em

[lollipoppet]

Ah this problem frustrates the hell out of me!!
I've looked everywhere and they sell every other pest but no cat killer... astounding!
It pisses me off so much that cat owners just shrug and go on about how they are independent creatures blah blah blah.... I wonder how they would react if my dog came and did a great big shit in their garden??

[Kveta]

netting is the only thing that's worked for us - you need to really peg it in securely. orange peel was useless, garlic powder was useless, bits of broken pottery were useless, short lengths of bamboo were useless, DH peeing there was useless. So I have put netting over my veg plot and pegged it in tightly so they can't get in, and so far, so good.

now to stop the furry fleabags from shitting on the lawn (and before anyone says 'oh, cats don't do that!', we have seen them doing it, and shouted, and ended up with long trails of poo across the lawn as they run away. they are bloody vile creatures) and presenting our tree with songbird sacrifices. Grr. I think we're going to get a dog actually.

one other point though - how do the cats get into your garden? we had a gap in the fence which they all used, and netting that up really reduced their use of our garden - now we're down to a single turd a day rather than 4 or 5 piles of them

they also use our shed roof as a mating spot apparently, so we're debating what to do to stop them - I'm thinking of putting some netting on it but putting it about 2 inches higher than the actual roof, if that makes sense? And not sure what to do about the fences they now walk along - something sticky and foul smelling, maybe? (but not their shite).

[lollipoppet]

Mating on the roof!? Yuck yuck yuck! They actually make my skin crawl. The evil things just jump our garden wall at the front, it's not very high. Hope you get sorted out with a nice dog with a big appetite for the nasty blighters!

[strawberryjelly]

Kveta we had netting stretched very tightly across the beds and the buggers crapped on top of it.

we have put chopped up canes all over too and they still manage to find a tiny space.

The problem gets worse when you need to lift the netting to allow the plants to grow upwards but they are not wide enough to fill the earth between them.

Cats get in every whichway. We have a side gate which does not reach the fround- tried putting a plank over the gap- so now they simply jump over the 6 ft boundary fence.

What really pisses me offf is when people say oh just buy pepper, netting, cat scarers, or anything else that might deter them- do they not appreciate the on going costs of this to keep their bloody cats out?

it is so selfish- you spend ££s on seeds and plants and bloody products to try to keep them off.

I don't know why people have cats- they are akin to vermin IMO- not like a dog who is loyal and has some purpose.

[Kveta]

Strawberry - I tend to agree on the vermin front, although not in public, as confessing to not adoring everything feline seems to be tantamount to admitting you eat faeces for breakfast, in this country.

wrt the netting - we have ours loose over the beds, but the bed in question is up agains a wall, so we've tacked it to the wall at the top, and pegged it into the ground at the base. can you get some sort of cold frame equivalent for your veggies next year, maybe? (this one is cheap at the moment) or get a cane mate type thing to make teepees of nets over your plants? I put the netting down at the same time as putting netting over their entry route into the garden - but I put very loose netting over their entry point, as it makes it more of a deterrant apparently. I've also use bricks to hold down the endges of the netting where it looks even vaguely unsecured!

my wee brother wosrks in a gardne centre and has recommend me a product these - he's sending me a packet so I can see if they work.

there were 3 cats on our shed roof last night though...

[nokissymum]

kveta - ive replied to your post on other poo thread, get battery operated cat repellant, its great

[Kveta]

thanks nokissy - I'm just worried that the noise from the cat repeller would irritate a dog too? and would a toddler or baby not be able to hear it too? if the copious netting plus the cat sticks don't work, I may resort to a sonic repeller thing!

[nokissymum]

I think if im correct! got 3 different settings, so the one for cats doesnt affect dogs nor humans, but please double check when you inquire because there may be different types.

I used mine for about 3 months just left it attached to wall near gravel and then removed it, a yr on cat still doesnt come round, good! Both mydelf and cat owner happy.