Do you have a garden?

Do your cats play in it? Ours love our garden, especially in the summer. I am hoping to grow my own fruit and veg this year so I hope the cats won't be too destructive - I just know they will be fascinated though lol

 

I doubt if your cats can do much harm to your garden. They are not known to be inveterate diggers. Dogs, on the other hand, are usually good at excavating whatever you have planted.

 

That is very true, our neighbours dog has made numerous holes in their garden. But cats do dig when they go to the loo.....

 

Great post Magickat. I also have a garden, but I do keep it fenced off from my cats and dogs. When I was first digging out the grass and prepping my plot, my cat would help me garden and lay down right next to me while I was working. It was so cute, but I didn't want him fishing around in there because I was going to eat everything in that veggie garden! Once it started flourishing and my summer squash came in, he stayed away all together. I know that some cats don't like smelling pepper flakes in their gardens so I sprinkled some around the perimeter.

 

That would be normal cat behavior. They cover up their feces after depositing it. Maybe it's some kind of security mechanism. Like covering up their tracks. Haven't noticed this in other animals.

 

I can imagine my cats being equally interested when I do start digging about. I just hope they won't be like the cartoon cat Garfield who was always eating his owner's ferns lol

 

I do plan on having a garden! I'm very excited because we just moved from the city to a place with three acres! My cats don't go out so I don't have to worry about that. I do have some strays I feed! Isn't funny how I just moved here over the summer and they already found me?

 

No garden or real plants in my house except a bamboo plant really up high. I have a Puerto Rican Flower Cart though with artificial flowers and I have to keep them out of the kitties' way because they want to chew them and they could do real harm...constantly watching them at Holiday time too with glitter and stuff.

 

When I was a kid/teenager, my family had a garden. The cats loved to go out in it and roll around in the grass and sun. We'd keep them out of the flowers though, just so they didn't eat anything that would make them sick.. but they loved chewing up the grass.

 

I had a garden last year and am getting ready for this years garden. My one cat whenever I'd be out there working in it he'd come out there and keep me company. He'd just lay down usually in the sun and sun himself. It was actually nice seeing him want to come out and be with me.

 

Pepper flakes? Never knew that they keep cats away. So where do we get these pepper flakes? And how long does the keep-cat-away effect last?

 

It's just plain ground up pepper flakes. They don't like sniffing it when they are looking for places to "do their business" so they just run away from my garden. It usually lasts only a few weeks. It's a very short-term solution, but effective since I'm always in there pulling out weeds and other stuff.

 

There are a number of remedies that are supposed to work, including orange peel and holly leaves! Not sure if any of them are really effective though.

 

Oh yes, my outdoor cats love to play and mess up the garden. We love to grow veggies, plant flowers and some fruit. My husband has put fence around it and everything, but it does not help!

 

Put a fence around a garden? I have never heard that fences ever deterred any cats from getting anywhere. The way I heard it, fences are to cats what highways are to men.

 

I agree, fences are just extra climbing frames for cats lol

 

What I'm doing would work but I'm not doing it to keep cats out because they aren't that much of a problem here. I'm doing it because the grasshoppers are awful here! I'm fencing my whole garden area with a privacy fence and then putting screen like you have on your windows over the top. I'm hoping it will keep out the majority of the grasshoppers because they nearly destroyed my whole garden last year which was fragile as it was. I moved the plants over from my other house in buckets and then replanted them.

 

Don't your cats like to hunt grasshoppers? I haven't seen my cats hunting grasshoppers but cockroaches are tasty treats for them.

 

You don't understand there were HUNDREDS of grasshoppers last year. Way more than any cat could eat but my five dogs ate their fair share.

 

We have quite a big garden.
Sophie can't go out yet.
She wants to go and have a look around.