The cats are the problem. Stray and feral cats are pests and can generally be reported to local animal control officers. In some places it is illegal to allow cats to run loose. That was true in Allouez, WI., next to Green Bay, when my sister and her husband lived there. There is quite a fine for loose cats in Australia and should be everywhere.

I typically love all animals but these cats are a major pest now.at a loss as to what I can do.they dug up every seedling in my garden this year going to the bathroom. It took chicken wire layed over the box to stop them.now the lawn is their primary target and chicken wire won't work there.

Contact your municipal, township, or county animal control for advice. As severe as you situation seems to be, you cannot be the only victim in your area. Furthermore if these are feral cats, they have no ownership protection in the first place.

Be careful though, cats are not the only animals that dig in gardens. Both squirrels, chipmunks, ground hogs, and the various ground squirrels will all do so as well and they will eat emerging seedlings or new transplants in many cases. Sometimes they will just plant go down the row, pulling up emerging seedlings and eating the sprouting seed as well as the new shoots.

If you have volunteer walnuts, hickories, buckeyes, etc., sprouting in your garden but no trees that produce them, then you definitely have squirrels messing around, doing the plantings. Cats won't do that, of course.

I like what Green Bay and surrounding areas do. They have leash laws including for cats. Any cat outside not leashed is subject to being picked up by animal control and potentially destroyed. Very little cat box problem in people's gardens around there. Actually my sister and her husband were under those laws in Allouez, not Green Bay proper. Their cats adapted just fine.

The pound sometimes rounds them up to fix them but releases them back in the area.if it was my property I'd trap em.I don't have to many rodents if any,but we do have racoons.I have not noticed any on the ground,they stay in the trees.pluss we hapen to have a lady who loves to have Ferrell cats in the area for some damn reason.any time one is traped she calls the cops,green peace and anybody else who will listen. Yet she don't own any cats her self.its stupid.and these cats are poseing a major health risk to the community. At this point I just went hydro for all my plants.to many problems to fix,even if I got rid of the cats,years of them craping in the dirt caused it to have an extremely high ph.like 10+ neighborhood. Not to many plants can handle alkaline soil like that.its cheaper to build my pop bottle hydroponic pots than to ammend the soil,eradicate the bugs and parasites, and get rid of the cats.I'm frustrated but moveing forward best I can.I got two years here before I get my land so Id make do.black widows are my big threat.have no idea how to cut the population down

Far as rouge plants in the garden go,nothing grows in that dirt.a morning glory is dieing in that dirt.I planted it just to see if it was going to survive.it looks like hell right now.I'm bout to remove all the dirt( its an above ground planter box,frames not attached to the ground in any way,small in size and maby 4-6 inch deep dirt wise)and just use the frame to contain my planter pots I make.this way I have healthy plants and with out dirt cats will have to crap on the grass.nothing I can do bout the grass,short of siting on the porch with a potatoe cannon.