Lots of coffe grounds, good for the soil also. If there is Starbucks or similar establishment nearby they can be convinced to help you out.
Rob

Wow, I can do all of these, and I will try them all too!!! I'll squirt them when I'm out there. My kids love oranges, do I put them directly on top of the soil or should I hange them in mesh onion bags around the garden perimeter? Plus I'll start spreading my coffee grounds on top of the beds too.

Thank you for your suggestions, I'll let you know how they work.

Have a great day!!
Hippychic

Howdy, HC!

Well, the cats being lower to the ground than deer, and their target being your soft, diggy soil--I'd scatter the peels on the mulch.

All the best. (And remember, cats are smart. If you openly squirt them, they will just learn to avoid getting squirted by you--won't stop them from visiting when you are indoors....)

I used chicken wire over my raised beds until the plants were big enough to keep the cat out. I just draped it over the whole bed, and it stayed on really well.

I have several outdoor cats. They like to dig in bare garden soil when they do their businesss, but will not bother mulch. Gardens mulched with either wood chips or grass clippings are left alone. Another trick is to poke sticks into the soil at 5' intervals. They don't like to be bothered trying to find a way around them and will go where there are less obsticles.

Kay.

I use chopped garlic cloves in my catmint when the neighbors cats start sleeping in it. Does the trick every time. I also used garlic last year when one of them was sleeping under my green bean teepee (kinda cute really) and digging around under there.

I used string to make the grids for my beds. It seems to keep the cat out. More importantly, we left a small pile of leftover topsoil alone and designated this as the cat litter box and she seemed to get the hint.

Incidentally, my sister tried putting chicken wire over her deep beds and her (intellectually challenged) cat goes and sits on the wire and poops on it.

I have a motion-sensor sprinkler I bought after my cats kept using my raised garden bed to do their thing. It worked great. It will shoot a stream of water and makes a bit of a noise while doing it when it senses any motion.
Didn't have one incident of cats or dogs in them for nearly six weeks until the other day after I forgot to hook the hose back up to it.

Cat Deterrents for your Garden:

Keep in mind that each cat is different (like people), what works for one may not necessarily work for another. On the plus side, most cats will keep pesty squirrels, moles and other critters out of your garden. They're great for keeping out moles, rabbits, squirrels, and other critters which can do more damage in your garden than a cat ever will. Birds aren't stupid, they watch for cats and stay away. Sometimes natural law comes into play and the quicker animal wins, it's natural law.

If the cats have owners, talk to them without being confrontational. The cat owner who allows his cat to damage other peoples' property is as guilty as the cat hater who kills the cat for trespassing. Remember, cats will be cats, and it is unfair of us to blame them for being what they are and how nature intended them to participate in this world. After-all, we praise them when they catch mice or rats or other creatures we deem to be 'pests'.

* amonia soaked (corncobs, etc)
* aluminum foil
* bamboo skewers
* black pepper
* blood meal fertilizer
* bramble cuttings
* Carefresh - "recycled" wood pulp
* catnip - donated into your neighbor's yards (so they'll stay in their own yards)
* cedar compost
* chicken wire (metal or plastic)
* cinnamon
* citrus peels
* citrus spray
* cocoa bean shells
* coffee grounds -fresh & unbrewed, not just a light sprinkling (highly recommended by MANY Gardenwebbers!)
* dogs
* electric fence for animals
* essence of orange. essence of lemon, lime (citrus essential oils)
* fresh manure(ditto)
* garlic cloves
* gumballs from the Sweet Gum Tree
* gutter covers
* hardware cloth
* heavy bark mulch
* holly leaves
* keep the area damp, they like dry soil
* lavender
* liquid manure (good for your garden too)
* motion sensor sprinkler
* pennyroyal
* pinecones
* pipe tobacco
* plastic forks
* predator urine
* red wine vinegar
* river rocks over the exposed soil
* rocks, crushed
* rose bush clippings
* rue, an herb (Ruta graveolens) (highly recommended in plant form only)
* short twigs throughout the planted area about 6" apart
* six-inch bamboo skewers (pointy side up)
* Spray on your leaves (not the cat): fill a spray bottle with 1/2 t chili powder, 1/2 t cayenne pepper, 1 t dish soap and water
* squirt gun with water
* talk to your neighbors
* tansy
* thorny berry, lilac, hawthorn, rose clippings
* toothpicks
* upside down vinyl carpet
* vinegar sprayed on areas where they roam
* water bottle on "stream"

NOT RECOMMENDED:
*** chili powder, red crushed pepper, cayenne pepper (NOT recommended), it gets on the cat's paws then they wash themselves and they get it in their eyes, beware cats have literally scratched their eyes out because of this. Even if it's one cat out of 500 infected in this way, that's one too many for me.
*** Don't ever use mothballs or flakes. Those little toxic waste pellets destroy cats' kidney function, could seriously harm people who handle them, and yes, contaminate your own garden soil. Their packaging even warns against using them this way.

Give them their own areas:

(To keep them out of where you don't want them)
(If you don't mind them protecting your garden from other critters)

+ pick the cat up and bring it to eye level with the plant to see and smell it up close. She noted that once her cat has seen and sniffed at the plant, she usually doesn't bother with it later.

+ give them their own plants - i.e., pots of grass for her to chew on and a place in a large planted container on her balcony with some miscanthus grass in it (the cat likes to curl up in that for some reason)

+ if the cats are strictly indoors and attracted to your houseplants, grow catgrass for them. If someone forced you to remain inside one enclosed structure all your life, you might be attracted to the plants too.

+ Barley Grass
+ Any type of "catgrass" from the pet store
+ Carex elata 'Bolwes Golden' but put it in some shade
+ Catmint Nepeta mussinicultivars (Simply put, Catmints are Catnips without any culinary or feline use. In any case, they are, however, phenomenal, long flowering, hardy perennials that belong in every fairie or flower garden.)
+ Catnip Nepeta cataria (in your own yard) The oils of which also work as a mosquito repellent that works 10 times better than Deet! Catmint is the common name for all varieties of Nepeta. Catnip is the common name for the specific variety of Nepeta called nepeta cataria, which is the variety that cats are most attracted to.
+ Cat Thyme (Teucrium marum)
+ Flax
+ Oat Grass
+ Jacob's Ladder
+ Lemon Grass
+ Loose soil and mulch like small bark mulch
+ Mints
+ Purple Fountain Grass so the cat lays in the long leaves all day. Maybe put something in that the cats really like and - you know cats won't winky were they like to hang out.
+ Sandy area
+ Silver vine (Actinidia polygama)
+ Striped Ribbon Grass (can be invasive)
+ Sweet grass
+ Trificum aestivum (type of cat grass)
+ Various Varieties of Cat Mints (Catnips)
+ Wheat Grass
+ Wheat Berries
+ Valerian

This list compiled by Violet_Z6, email at violetgw@care2.com for comments and suggestions regarding this list.

I'm gonna try the chicken wire as a top dressing. I'll let you know how it works. If they cant dig in the fence maybe they wont potty there. I also think I will try adding a little citrus to the area as well. This all sounds great hope it works. Most of the cats around my place are wild and cannot be caught. I will have to try extreme methods if previous is a failure. I have trapped these cats for years and removed them from the property. The problem is I live in the country and they ae everywhere. They multiply by the dozens, literally. I have 4 adult very HUGE rottweilers that they avoid. They are not bothered by the dogs growling , barking, or fence running at them. They know the dogs are behind that fence and cannot get them and I cannot let the dogs into the garden area because it is not totaly fenced in. Besides then they will be a problem. And I would just be contributing to the allready frustrating issue at hand. Well thanks for the information and I hope some of it might be a success.....:)

I've used cayenne pepper along with Trinidad scorpion peppers in the alley to help handle our cat infestation. From reading these posts, I'm glad to hear that using the hottest peppers obtainable yields positive results. I'm going to double my efforts and touch up all of my raised beds tomorrow. I encourage others to do the same. They also sell electric barriers on Amazon for fairly cheap. I've also had success with these in my backyard but unfortunately I don't think I can get away with applying them to the front yard due to the children that occasionally come around.

An old thread but a common and recurring problem - cats, squirrels, skunks, and other rodents.

If you can cover the top of a bed with chicken wire or hardware cloth that will protect seedling until they start to grow.

I have also had good luck using thorny rose bush or wild raspberry trimmings layed along new seedlings. It turns out they don't like pain any more than we do.