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Spring has arrived with all her glory. Some days we have beautiful sunshine followed by days of rain and muddy shoes. I've spent some hours out in our back yard pulling weeds, replanting plants and generally cleaning up from winter. We have plenty of weeds as they seem to love our garden. I just found that DH wants to re-seed the back yard completely in September. I didn't know that was the plan...but my plans haven't changed. I still want to move the vegetable garden to the south side of the house where the neighborhood cats haven't ruined the soil yet. I have it set apart with the rock wall and I just need to fill it with garden soil and then devise some sort of netting over the top to ensure the cats can't get to it.
Which brings me back again to the kitty issue. When DH was outside yesterday he found a number of new areas of cat poop. He could smell it...from quite a ways away. Then this morning I was downstairs near the back door and I watched another kitty just walk up and pee on our barbecue cover I put over a table on the lawn to air out. It just didn't bat an eyelash. I tried to get outside and take a broom to the cat to scare it, but kitties are fast and pregnant mommies before coffee are not. So that gives credence to our new idea to send out a letter to every neighbor with an adjoining property that details our cat issues and notifies them that we will trap from then forward for as long as it takes. DH and I talked about it last night for a long time and we are just at a loss as to what to do. We've tried a number of products and tricks, but most of the products we've found are not for use in vegetable gardens and I don't want to poison our yard permanently. I've read all sorts of weird ideas but none seem to make sense save a few. So here are my new ideas:
1. Put something on the fences where the cats walk to get into our yard. They walk along the top and so it makes sense to put something they dislike like a smelly product, or something they won't like their paws to touch. I heard once that cats won't walk on sandpaper and that wouldn't hurt their feet. I don't know how long that would last.
2. Buy 1 or 2 of the motion activated sprinklers for special areas of the yard. I was worried about the water pressure blowing these up, but we can turn that down at the street to make it work. These are nifty and they can be fined tuned to work in quite a few different ways. The only downside is the cost at about $66 each. Ouchy.
3. Trap the cats. Take them to the county animal place. If our neighbors will not keep their pets in their yard then I will make sure their pets have a limited number of entries into mine.
4. Put out more gravel around the property. It seems to be the one medium that cats don't like to walk or poop in. I hate gravel for a landscape material, but we're desperate here.
What do you think? I'd love your input.
Which brings me back again to the kitty issue. When DH was outside yesterday he found a number of new areas of cat poop. He could smell it...from quite a ways away. Then this morning I was downstairs near the back door and I watched another kitty just walk up and pee on our barbecue cover I put over a table on the lawn to air out. It just didn't bat an eyelash. I tried to get outside and take a broom to the cat to scare it, but kitties are fast and pregnant mommies before coffee are not. So that gives credence to our new idea to send out a letter to every neighbor with an adjoining property that details our cat issues and notifies them that we will trap from then forward for as long as it takes. DH and I talked about it last night for a long time and we are just at a loss as to what to do. We've tried a number of products and tricks, but most of the products we've found are not for use in vegetable gardens and I don't want to poison our yard permanently. I've read all sorts of weird ideas but none seem to make sense save a few. So here are my new ideas:
1. Put something on the fences where the cats walk to get into our yard. They walk along the top and so it makes sense to put something they dislike like a smelly product, or something they won't like their paws to touch. I heard once that cats won't walk on sandpaper and that wouldn't hurt their feet. I don't know how long that would last.
2. Buy 1 or 2 of the motion activated sprinklers for special areas of the yard. I was worried about the water pressure blowing these up, but we can turn that down at the street to make it work. These are nifty and they can be fined tuned to work in quite a few different ways. The only downside is the cost at about $66 each. Ouchy.
3. Trap the cats. Take them to the county animal place. If our neighbors will not keep their pets in their yard then I will make sure their pets have a limited number of entries into mine.
4. Put out more gravel around the property. It seems to be the one medium that cats don't like to walk or poop in. I hate gravel for a landscape material, but we're desperate here.
What do you think? I'd love your input.
Comments
My only other suggestion? Go ahead, let the cats poop in the vegetable garden...then invite your neighbors over for salad!