I should think cats would love the mulch. Nice soft sitting. How about twiggy or prickly prunings? That is what I use on seed beds. Once the plants grow up the soil is less exposed and less fluffy so cats stay away.

Yep... I'm constantly fighting at least 4 neighborhood cats who absolutely LOVE wood bark mulch. Best part is they really like to dig, crap, & cover *right next to* a bush or perennial, etc.

I'm also considering the motion-activated sprinklers, and if I do it I'll likely bury the water lines for the same reasons your husband mentions. heck... I'll probably install a faucet on my wooden raised bed sides for ease of watering.

Don't worry about the cats, end of problem.

When I was a child, some cat on occasion would use my sandbox as his outhouse, my dad thought it was funny when I found his gift.

My cat refuses to use a litterbox. I see him all over my gardens doing his business, but haven't noticed any harm..............of course, it's only one cat in a large yard. The SCARECROW motion activitated sprinklers work great - have friends here who are the only ones on their cul de sac that have no deer damage.

I buy cayenne pepper here at a huge farmer's market - it's practically free at just over $1 for 1/2 pound. That's about a pint.

Our cat loves dirt - the softer the better, mulches are just even more attractive. I've resorted to putting a ring of honeylocust thorns around any specimen plants! ;)

I have barn cats who liked to use my flower gardens as a litterbox. I also used the chicken wire with holes for my plants - and also found weeding a pain. Now I still use chicken wire but I cut it into smaller pieces to put around the plants (instead of over) which can be picked up for weeding and then replaced. The pieces can be cut into whatever size fits the area or the size that you find more manageable. I put a thin layer of mulch over it to hide the wire and the cats, once they scratch and find the wire, go elsewhere. I also will put stones or garden junk in areas to keep the cats out.
Good luck because I know what a pain, and how odorous, cats can be.

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Spread the canes from pruning the roses. The cats aren't going to like the thorns. A bramble by any other name. A pair of gloves will let you pick them up and move them about for weeding and as things change.

to sense
..

I've tried a few things and found once a cat decides your box is it you have a new job.

What discouraged the cat most of all was plastic bird or deer netting loosely laid over soil or plants. I propped it up with a few sticks covered with upside down plastic soda/water bottles. I let excess drape over the path & onto the next bed.

Burlap, wire on the ground, black or cayenne pepper, mint tea, upturned rose & barberry prunings, dog walking, milk jugs, etc. were temporary deterrents that kept me thinking what else to try.

Fortunately, both neighbors with cats moved away. The cats did keep the rabbits out of the gardens.

I feel your pain as I've been fighting deer, marmots, and chipmunks. Finally put up 7' deer fence, had a bunch of the marmot shot, and just barely cope with the chipmunk problem but am learning more each year. I also know they thrive in cycles so one year there will be none for awhile.

A few ideas here: "Preventing cats from pooping in the garden"

Not sure I'd be so nice as to do #1, #4 & #8 not applicable unless it's only your cat, #5 highly recommended to break the habit, #6 definitely not an environmental choice and not recommended, #10 huh? these are cats, they don't need a reason for their behavior! Heaven help us, who writes this stuff!

I wonder if the curry plant really works?

Anyhow if you understand cats you know they don't like change so make as many changes as you can and they may find someone else's yard to go to!

Here's what I do to keep my cat (and any other adventurous cats) out of my gardens and pots... for either a bed or a litter box... plastic forks!! Buy a big, cheap box, and stick them in handle-down so the tines poke up, and then when cat squats... well, the cat doesn't hurt itself, it just finds somewhere more comfortable to use. Adjust their spacing as needed to prevent the cat's comfort. Now you don't have to worry about smells, or reapplying cayenne (which, btw, can permanently damage the smell receptors of animals - chemical burn) or anything like that. they last for years.

thatannagirl, could you tell us where you got your info re "cayenne ......can permanently damage the smell receptors of animals."?????????????

Your statement goes totally opposite to all I have read. If you can support this, please do. If you cannot, please retract so misinformation like this doesn't spread.

Thanks, Rosie

I have lots of friends and acquaintances in law enforcement. I used to use cayenne pepper on my garden until one of them told me that it would permanently damage their smell receptors. Their K-9 units, he said, have to be retired if they get a snout full. They don't lose all sense of smell, but it's no longer up to par because it causes a chemical burn up on their delicate little smell receptors.
If you have a research article that says otherwise, I'm not so blindly confident in his information source to support it any more than I have just stated, and I will concede the point.

thatannagirl,

I googled the phrase
cayenne can permanently damage the smell receptors of animals

No results in my reading to support what you said. I can imagine that K9 dogs cannot have any percentage of damage if they're to do their work. Can you ask these friends for substantive papers/research to support their claims??

Again, thanks.

"A snootful" sounds like a handful being thrown at the animal's face. At least I think it would take that much to do serious damage. As it would to you or me. :-D

Hard to imagine that the scent emanating from the garden would do any kind of damage.

When I prepare my garden plots in the spring and rake them smooth the cats always want to walk across them. I put down chicken wire across the soil to keep them off until the plants start to come up. By that time, I don't see the cat prints any more. They seem to prefer the freshly raked beds, and never bother the plots later in the season.

C'mon you guys, stop snarking!
I have used popsicle sticks that have kept them out.
Since there has been a flux of feral cats the last couple of years (Animal control will fix and vaccinate feral cats for free and return to be "mousers")
My neighbor has many digger pines, and I was thinking of using the pine cones to keep the cats out. I had read of doing that to keep dogs out of places, so why not kitties!
You can place them around the plants, move them when you want and the water will drip through them!
Just a thought! Nancy

My mom used old strips of carpet nails to keep the cats out of newly planted beds. Easy to pick up and move to weed, then just put back in the shed after the plants get bigger. Course my dad's in construction so we had a ready supply of them from remodels.

If you dont want to shoot it yourself then let the cats owner do it. Start by mixing in a strong laxative into a 1/2 can of tuna and when the cat goes home and craps all over thier house the owners will hopfully take care of business.lol

I'm pretty sure I would not like a cat tearing up my garden but I would like one to take care of the voles and moles turning up everywhere. We had cats for many years without rodent problems in the garden. However, we also lost a lot of song birds to them so when they finally passed, the oldest being 20 and experiencing lots of end of life issues, my wife said, never again. That was two years ago. Now, my 40 year old garden with 40 years worth of TLC and hundreds of pounds of horse manure, compost, mulch, etc. seems to have become the grand resort for those darn rodents. They are everywhere. Given a choice, I would bring back the cats. But, my DW has precluded that choice.

I am collecting the spiky seeds balls from liquidamber trees. I've heard that cats don't like to walk on them, so I plan to put them on the soil in my raised beds. Besides the poop, cats dig when they're done and scatter my freshly planted seeds. Plastic forks sound like a good option, too.

Our own cats are guilty of poo and cover.Not a problem under trees, but veg garden yuck! I wonder what can kill the Toxoplasmosis once it's already there? And hopefully something that won't kill the good critters.

Good idea. Assuming they decide they like it. :-]

I had a cat for about 10 yrs. who passed on the same year this thread started. No fences in our neighborhood, and I had a neighbor lady behind me who got really steamed at the neighborhood cats, and their owners, when the cats used her gardens as a litter box. She literally still doesn't talk to me even after we apologized and started keeping our cat either indoors or accompanied 100% of the time she was outside so she didn't run into the neighbor's yards. By that time she was not in great health so it wasn't too hard. But in her younger days we used to let her out and she'd disappear for hours. I have to say I didn't really understand how aggravating it can be for neighbors when other peoples' cats come into their yards uninvited. I mean WE like cats and will always greet them, but when they dig around in the garden, we don't like it either.

We have not gotten another cat, partly because Tiger Stripe was so cool we don't think any other cat would come close, and partly because we would want it to enjoy the outdoors but don't know how to keep it in our own yard.

I grow a lot of roses. Have 4 large beds. I also take care of a feral community of about 9 cats plus my own 3 indoor/outdoor cats. Yes, the cats use the rose beds but I have noticed that their pee or poo doesn't bother anything. I hand water, so most of the time I just wash everything into the soil. Something I started doing is the used cat litter goes into the back corner of my property (1/2 acre). A lot of the cats use that. Now dog pee or poo is a TOTALLY different story. Anything that crap hits will die.

My dogs don't get around to poo/pee in the food beds, but, they did go and dig around in 1 bed with steel legs that I had in the dog yard, I had a plastic fence around it too, but the wood stakes rotted and the fence was no longer up, I'll try to get plastic stakes this spring. cat poo is really something you don't want in with your lettuce and spinach etc, stuff you eat raw, and also anything you'll cook, they can have parasites, our cats get their shots, but, there are a few strays we can't get near. Later.

I was surprised to see this thread come back to life after 5 years. I ultimately ended up placing chicken wire on top of the soil. That kept the cat from digging in the garden. Thankfully, the cat and his owner no longer live in the area. She began letting him outside nearly 24/7. He began terrorizing another neighbor's house, ruining 5 window screens before that neighbor called animal control. At any rate, the cat is no longer our problem.

1. 1. 1. I have noticed several old threads revived recently. Perhaps it is just where I happened to be browsing.

3. 1. Your may no longer have a cat problem, but this old question seems to be perpetually germane.

ETA; What did I just do? I was typing and hit submit and I get boxes. ETA; now the boxes are gone and the paragraphs are numbered ''1.''

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Hazelnut mulch. I live next-door to an animal collector. 10 feral cats & counting. It’s expensive but lasts a long time. I also use a motion sensor sprinkler, netting & chickenwire.

I looked into the motion sprinklers. Skipped them. Feral cats out here galore and they love popping in the mulch....I suppose it's like kitty litter. I have spent countless hours taking chickenwire, every square quadrant, I have cut with pliers and lifted so it's really a barbed chicken wire. They must be teasing me, as literally in a 12x24" spot where I might not have it, they will just poop there. I see this all the time whenever I see disturbed mulch...

Well yes, of course if you're making some beds inhospitable to poop in, the cats will use the next most attractive ground to poop in. They like something loose and preferably fine textured that they can dig in, like soil, sandy soil, or loose fluffy mulch. So it would help to leave one small area, maybe hidden behind a shrub, that is acceptable to both you and the cats. Otherwise they'll just poop in the least inhospitable spot, so you might as well give them an alternative that you don't mind. It won't harm the shrub.

Found this thread looking for the same solution. Neighbor puts out food every night for 8+ feral cats & skunks. The cats have destroyed the flower beds, using the mulch as their litter box. The Blink camera has caught males, numerous times, urinating on the house. Open the window in the spring and it doesn't smell like flowers, just cat urine. The ignoramus next door is too lazy to put out a litter box, so my solution is a $25 trap from Harbor Freight. They'll eventually be transported to another part of the county, some wooded area. They'll survive. Hopefully, problem solved.

Um, yeah, those cats will likely die since they will be no longer fed by somebody. I do understand how it is to have somebody's cat mess up your stuff, my own mothers cats do SO MUCH rotten and FOUL peeing on everything and using plant beds as litter boxes, I can't even have my room door open because they will pee on everything, as favorite is my computer monitor.

I do love animals and really hope that somebody will feed them wherever they end up. I live at home with my mom, so, it is HER house, so, I just have to deal with it. I do feel bad for those neighbor feral cats, they will likely die if they are away from people who may feed them, cats that have been fed are used to it, and maybe most haven't got hunting skills at all.

BTW, MULCH will attract kitties to pee and poo in it. My mom's have done it all the time.

I trap them, take them 25 miles to my office, and release. They have a nice meal on the way. I can do 5 cats/week if i needed to haha

better to just take to animal control - you are insuring a slow death from starvation with what you are doing. the feral cat problem is caused by people and not the cat's fault. I understand not wanting to deal with it, but you could be more humane about it.

Yes. I've been mulching my inner city garden with straw this year and it works well.