Cats in My Garden

I often mention the challenges of gardening with dogs. Particularly when I am newly planting things. Rarely do I mention the challenges of gardening with so many cats. We have 6 and all of them freely wander in and out all spring, summer and fall. In the winter, their usual door (an open dining room window) is closed. A couple of them will continue to go outside through winter, using the doors when they are opened to let dogs in and out. Most of them stay inside in the winter. They are less of a challenge for my garden than the dogs are because the cats never dig plants. They do like to roll in mulch and dry dirt so I am often kicking mulch flat and covering up bare spots but it really becomes part of how I walk through the garden and doesn't feel like too much of a bother. When we first moved here, our cat that came with the house, Hannah, was using two of the garden beds for an outdoor litter box.

I remedied that immediately with cayenne pepper and she is now using somewhere in the acres of bush that I do not go into because I try and avoid wood tics. Dogs or cats makes no difference. My rule is always... when you are gardening an unfenced bed and you have outdoor pets - you better wear gloves when you work! Scooping up is probably the least exciting chore that comes with pet ownership but I have been mostly lucky on that with my garden beds. Once I am able to convince them an area is part of my garden now, they rarely give me trouble.