Keeping my cats off th3e vegetable bed.

[couchparsnip]

Also posted in the litter tray.
Is there a relatively cheap way of keeping your own cats from getting to a vegetable bed?
We currently have a set up with bamboo and mesh secured down but they have ripped it up to get inside.
Have we wasted our time?

I would make another nice softly dug over bed for them!

Though Interestingly our little house cat died recently (she was 18 years old) and I "planted' her in the front garden where she enjoyed sitting, not one of our rescued cat strays has even looked at the digging.

Do you just want to stop them toileting? If they like catnip, plant some of it alongside your veg, they won't crap where they do their drugs!

@MrsBertBibby

Do you just want to stop them toileting? If they like catnip, plant some of it alongside your veg, they won't crap where they do their drugs!

Youll need to be prepared to plant new every week, if your cats like it. If they’re among the large proportion of cats that are unmoved by it, it won’t have any effect.

Try short sticks vertically into the soil every 4 inches.

My Walkers Low made it last spring, despite the devoted attentions of my pair of feline potheads.

I do plan to plant another elsewhere, to ease the pressure on the poor thing.

I use wire mesh shelves from an old plastic greenhouse just laid in the ground they work a treat at stopping our two cats

@ppeatfruit

I would make another nice softly dug over bed for them!

Though Interestingly our little house cat died recently (she was 18 years old) and I "planted' her in the front garden where she enjoyed sitting, not one of our rescued cat strays has even looked at the digging.

Thanks for the tip and I'm sorry for your loss. xx

I used to get little green garden stakes, snap them in half and stick lots into the soil. Not cat pooed there in case a stake went up their bum.

Now we have a dog, I've not seen any cat poo in garden (and next door has 5 cats).

@MrsBertBibby

Do you just want to stop them toileting? If they like catnip, plant some of it alongside your veg, they won't crap where they do their drugs!

It's more that they like eating plants. They've chewed up the house plants so much we've had to compost them. Yesterday the littlest one tried to get inside the mesh and because she couldn't immediately get in She had a tantrum. She meowed a lot then ripped a hole in the side. Then, still meowing, she got up on the top and ripped a hole there too, bending the bamboo sticks and snapping them with her weight. Little terror! DH just watched in amazement and didn't stop her!!

@TheMooch

I used to get little green garden stakes, snap them in half and stick lots into the soil. Not cat pooed there in case a stake went up their bum.

Now we have a dog, I've not seen any cat poo in garden (and next door has 5 cats).

Good tip thank you. It's so frustrating after all the work preparing raised beds etc that we might end up with no plants!

I've had good success with Silent Roar, especially on freshly dug earth that that cats have not yet pooed or peed on.

When I was a child my mum used to fill glass medicine bottles with household ammonia and bury them up to the neck in areas that she wanted the cats to avoid. Apparently they hate the smell, but it disperses fast enough that we only get a little whiff. DM would put a stick or a worn out old feltpen in the bottle so that the humans could spot it and avoid it.

Try short sticks vertically into the soil every 4 inches.
I've done this with newly dug soil and next door's cats have stayed away. A couple of packs of sticks from Poundland was perfect

Thank you couch I just remembered that like missmolly I too laid down mesh wire shelves that were in a set of garden (sort of greenhouse shelving) and they were effective against birds as well as cats to protect newly moved/planted peonies. I used them for new grass seed too.