What repels cats from the garden

There are many folk humane ways to protect beds from cats. We have chosen the most effective.

How to scare away the neighbor's cats from the garden plot

The appearance on your homestead plot of stray or neighbor's cats is not happy for any dacha owner. And the thing is that the mustachioed, striped cats do not behave in the best way: they trample and dig up the garden beds, sharpen their claws on the bark of fruit trees, arrange a toilet in the flowerbed. Today I will tell you how to discourage furry troublemakers from your dacha without hurting them.

• The absence of a guard dog in the yard;
• the presence of sunny places on your property (these heat-loving creatures like to lie on the sun-heated ground, especially on the vegetable garden);
• the presence on the territory of your dacha of catnip, a plant that attracts these animals;

How to scare the cats away from the dacha area?

You can fight these uninvited guests with humane methods. They should be applied after communication with neighbors, who are owners of cats that are messing around in your garden beds. Perhaps after communicating with you, they will put down their furry pets, and will not let them out of their dacha.

I no longer have strange cats in my dacha! And I was helped not by exhortations from neighbors, but by effective methods of scaring away the fluffy troublemakers.

What harmless for cats, but effective ways to scare them we can use? I suggest the following.

Smells

Cats have an acute sense of smell. They cannot stand loud smells. That's what we use to scare the whiskers away from the vegetable garden.

You can distract the furry aliens from their beds, resorting to the following cunning: plant on a vacant lot away from your vegetable garden catnip or valerian. Cats will forget about your garden! They will have a favorite place to rest.

In addition to scented herbs, essential oils (lavender, eucalyptus, lemon, orange), spices like cinnamon and pepper, garlic, tobacco, coffee, and vinegar can help you scare away strange cats from your property.

Spray a solution of aroma oil, garlic decoction or vinegar on fences, porches, beds and flowerbeds. The pungent smell will scare away uninvited guests.

You can scatter lemon or orange peels around a site, place spice pots, sprinkle paths with tobacco or coffee grounds. That works, too!

Unpleasant surfaces.

Cats don't like to step on surfaces that irritate the tingling pads on their paws. Sprinkle paths with marble chips or chopped pebbles, make wide decorative circles of cones and nutshells in beds.

Benefits from cats in the garden

The presence of a cat in the garden can be very beneficial for you when you need to scare away rodents from the plot. To keep your cat comfortable on the property, create a place for her to play and rest in the sun. They will appreciate plants planted nearby: catnip, common wormwood, valerian. Cats will keep your garden and plantings safe from mice and moles.

• Cat feces may contain parasites or pathogens not found in herbivore manure. This is a concern because most of us plan to eat the food we grow!
• Stray domestic cats kill songbirds, about 140 million (birds and small animals) each year.
• Stray cats can aggravate neighborhood relationships.

Ways to discourage cats from your property

Are cats roaming your neighborhood? Try these humane ways to keep cats out of your yard and garden so they don't dig up your prize flowers and turn your landscape into their own litter box.

Conversation with your owners.

If your neighbor's cats have been poking around in your garden, the first place to start is to talk to the owners of the unwanted guests. Perhaps the cats just got away or there's a way to keep them off your property. Ask the owner if the cat is spayed and ask him or her to ensure that there is a suitable toilet in the cat's own garden.

Wet soil and auto-irrigation

• If your pest has a favorite spot, wash it well with a hose (or water from a rainwater barrel) to remove the smell or splash of urine. Reinforce your cleaning with eco-friendly liquid soap on doors, garden furniture, etc. Cats tend to pick the same spot repeatedly, so remove their previous footprints around your garden to prevent repeat offenses.
• Cats love to get wet, so a motion-activated sprinkler that turns on every time it detects movement and animal heat is great if your patience is running low.Every time a cat wanders into your garden, the sprinkler emits a sudden stream of water along with a startling noise to scare it away.

Cat repellent smells

Cats have very sensitive noses, so even smells that are barely noticeable to us can be unpleasant for them. Some smells are so pungent that cats want to stay away.

Here are some scents that repel cats and ways to use them in the lawn and garden:

• Store-bought repellent sprays are designed to repel cats with a formula of smells they don't like.
• Citrus: scatter fresh citrus peels or spray citrus-scented spray liberally.
• Coffee grounds: after making coffee, spread used grounds around the area and in places where you've seen cats more often.
• Vinegar: Dilute vinegar with water and then spray. Do not spray near grass or a garden, as vinegar can harm plants.
• Pipe tobacco. Spread it over the area you want to protect from cats.
• Essential oils: fill a sprayer with water and add up to 10 drops of lavender, citronella, lemongrass, or eucalyptus oil, then spray on the cat's favorite spots.

Attractive nook.

Give owners of bullying pets some tips on how to discourage cats from their neighbor's property. To do this, you need to attract them to some corner of your garden. This can be done by installing trays (if they are accustomed to the toilet) or creating a special "cat" corner. There is a plant called catnip, or catnip. Very attractive, it blooms most of the summer and will beautify the site. Cats will gladly visit this corner, sleep there and chew on the leaves. And if you fill it with sand, the toilet will be in one place, and not all over the site.

By the way, if the owner did not respond to your requests, and the neighbor's cat continues to visit periodically, you can arrange such a corner on your plot. At least cats will visit only it, forgetting about the rest of the area. Of course, there are no guarantees, but most animals like the smell of this plant very much.

Natural cat repellent

If the reception is not successful, it is worth thinking about how to fence off your plot from furry invaders. Once again, plants come to the rescue. There are certain smells that representatives of the whiskers do not like and try to avoid. If eucalyptus, lemongrass and lavender are planted in the garden, they will not fall into the garden. And the plants will perform two functions at once: decorate the site and work perfectly as a "scarecrow".

The best in this class are wormwood and coleus dogwood. The only point: coleus is very heat-loving, so you will have to bring it home for the winter. These plants are planted along the perimeter of the plot. Another useful plant would be tobacco, but in order for it to have the desired effect, you will need to dry the leaves and scatter them around.

Cat repellent methods to avoid

Mothballs. Naphthalene balls are a pesticide and are toxic to pets and wildlife, as well as humans. It is best not to use naphthalene in the garden or in the house.

Coffee grounds. It is not uncommon to see recommendations to mulch beds with coffee grounds to discourage cats. Remember, however, that ingesting even a small amount of coffee grounds can cause death to the cat or dog. Therefore, it is better not to use coffee grounds in your garden, but to pour the leftover coffee into a compost heap that is out of reach of animals.

Plastic forks. Another frequent recommendation is to create "armies" of forks sticking out of the ground in the flower bed or in the bed. However, it is better not to use this measure for several reasons: plastic is harmful to the environment; it looks very unaesthetic; plastic when heated can release toxins into the soil.

Dear ReadersWe hope that our recommendations will help protect your garden from negative activities of cats. Share your experiences, do you have furry friends creating havoc in the garden, and how you deal with it.

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How to wean other people's cats from tagging on the property? (a cat lady told me 10 ways)

I first thought about it when we bought the site – 3.5 years ago, but somehow never got around to it. Lives with us across 2 plots a single woman surrounded by cats and cats. And of course, all these pets are walking around, including our backyard areas.

It's been 3 years since we had an argument and didn't talk to her, well, it's impossible to argue with the cats, they keep "bouncing" stinky smells all over the place. I have already stopped paying attention to it, it stinks a little and evaporates in a few hours. Of course, not nice – but get used to it already :-))).

. while walking back – got to talking. According to her, she has 37 cats and cats (it's just awful!) With difficulty, but I got into her position, but what can I do? She likes to be surrounded by cats. Of course, taking the opportunity, I asked her how I could avoid having her cats tagging all over the house. After all, they are all over the place, both on the children's toys and on the building material. Well, you probably know yourself, if you read my article :-))).

In fact, I was surprised when she told me that the "tags" we are accustomed to are not all that cats can do! Cats secrete secret from scent glands on their cheeks, around their eyes, on their feet and on their sides, so they often rub themselves on those parts of the body. Well, what with them, you can not feel them, but the smell coming out from under the tail – it's a real annoyance! :-)))

We have no idea that the owner of literally every object on the site is a cat, at least – he's sure of it ))))).

In order to wean or at least somehow influence the tails, we need to understand that we are going to war with nature, and you must agree that this is very difficult for man. So, before we move on to more labor-intensive methods, I'll note the most accessible one.

To keep other people's cats from tagging, trivial, but they need to block access to the territory of the yard. This is not easy to do, but you can try. As you know, even a high fence is not a barrier. If there is any tree growing next to it, the kitty will definitely be in our yard. All the cracks under the wicket and under the gate – need to eliminate as well.

Smell

Since cats have a strong sense of smell, the ways described below work very well against cats:

1. Vinegar or ammonia. It is labor-intensive, but these means can be applied to any surface and no cat will come closer than 3-4 meters away. The huge disadvantage is that they evaporate quickly.

2. Chili pepper. If this crop is planted, there will be no animals within a few meters.

3. There are products on sale in pet stores that interfere with cat odor. Means like "Antigadine". This way, the cat will not mark the same object twice.

A tree instead of a scratching post

Purrs like to sharpen their claws. For this activity, they choose a tree on the property and use it as a scratching post. Young trees with thin bark especially suffer from hooliganism. If you do not scare off the "robber", the plant with a tattered trunk can die.

Cats love to tag the territory with the "fragrant" tag. But cats do not refuse either. The animal warns others: the place is occupied. Fluffy is not interested if it is your or the neighbor's place.

He doesn't care if the potatoes and carrots are growing there. Cat urine will scorch the plants and nothing will grow there next season. Once they have pooped on it, they will fill it up with earth, digging out the seedlings and seeds they have sown.

Cat feces are not happy: they can be the source of toxoplasmosis, a disease especially dangerous for pregnant women. A child can catch worms if he eats an unwashed vegetable from a labeled bed.

A bed for a lie-in.

The owner or an alien cat (cat) may take a frothed bed or flowerbed to bask in the sun every time, to play. At the same time it digs holes, stomps on plantings with flowers, tastes the greens or tastes the young cucumbers.

Felids or felines belong to predators. It is their nature to be hunters. When a cat brings a mouse to its master's feet, it shows concern for it as its own of the pack. And it shows its hunting skills.

It is good if the mouse trap is a rat trap. But often the target can be small birds, which the kitty quietly scampering in the vegetable garden. While gardeners lure the birds to the plot to control pests.

Sometimes chickens or chicks of other poultry can become prey for the "whiskered hunter" on their own or a neighbor's territory.

What smells do cats not like?

With the arrival of warm summer days, gardeners move to their dachas and take their favorite pets with them – not to leave the cats in the city. But they cause a lot of trouble in the garden.

• Gardens and flowerbeds are often used by animals as toilets. Cat excrement is dangerous for plants: it can kill flowers and vegetables. In addition, cats are territorial animals. Instinctively, they leave urine marks on the borders of their possessions, and this is not particularly good for the plants either.
• Cats like to lie down in soft, cool vegetation. And it doesn't matter at all whether it is lawn grass, carrot tops or flowerbeds with pansies.
• Cats often use the bark of fruit trees as a scratching post.
• Cats are known to be good hunters of birds. Therefore, dacha owners who purposely lure birds to their plot are unlikely to like the reaction of their pets – a large cat is capable of causing mayhem no less than a ravenous fox.

In addition to your own pets, the neighbor's pets can appear on the site.

Of course, you can watch the vegetable garden all day long, stop the animal approaching the forbidden territory and quickly repel it. But this will take a lot of time, and in addition will arouse dislike of the cat. There are a lot of more humane but no less effective solutions to this problem.

Plants

You can wean a cat from taking a nap in the clubhouse by planting lavender. It is a beautiful ornamental plant that is completely harmless to humans. However, the pungent smell disgusts animals. If you plant these flowers around the perimeter of the site or in between the rows, cats will stay away from such plantings.

In addition, cats cannot stand the smell of bay leaves. Its crushed leaves can be scattered around the territory of good luck, and then the invasion of animals on your plantings will not threaten you. Cats have a similar dislike for citrus fruits, you can use scented oil of orange, lemon or grapefruit.

What else to scare them off with?

If you are not a supporter of folk methods, use professional sprays. The modern industry offers a large number of products that act as a cat repellent. Means are available as aerosols and in granular form. For home use, the aerosol is the most effective, but to chase the animals away from the beds, you should opt for pellets. They are scattered in places that the fluffy animals have taken a fancy toilets.

Each manufacturer uses its own working components, mostly essential oils or plant products, such as hot pepper. The most expensive brands contain pheromones of urine of large predatory animals (fox or wolf). This one works on cats' instincts – the composition tells them that the territory where the dangerous animal lives is better to leave as soon as possible. The best reviews are from Shake-Away, Critter Ridder and Keep Off brands.

Using products from one of these manufacturers, you can be absolutely sure that the effect will be one hundred percent.

Problems of the cottage area from the neighbor's cats

They sharpen their claws on trees.

One of the favorite activities of a normal cat is sharpening claws. A tree is the best place for this activity. Although the tree itself claw has a hard time. Young trees with soft bark especially suffer from the cat's manicure.

Marking the territory

Every adult cat is honorable to mark its territory with a scent mark. Not only their urine is used, but also a special secret that literally burns the plants. As the saying goes, let the cat in the garden, and lo and behold… "Fragrance" marks are so ingrained that they cannot be removed.

Hunting birds

A cat is a hunter by nature and will hunt anything that moves. It's good if it's mice. But even birds that gardeners try to attract to their plots to fight pests will also be hunted. And even small domestic fowl can be spun by an adult cat.

Chickens and chicks of other domesticated birds often become victims of these moustached hunters.

They trample and eat plants.

What little cat doesn't like to bask in the sun, bask in the fluffy bed or flowerbed, try the young greenery or just play with the flowers. This is how flowerbeds and beds suffer.

Setting up unauthorized toilets in the beds

In the spring of this activity, cats – lovers of burying their "creations" simply dig up seeds and sprouts. And in the summer the owners, digging up the carrots fertilized by their pet, have far from tender feelings towards their and their neighbors Vaska and Murky. In addition, "cat manure" is not a fertilizer, but a possible source of toxoplasmosis infection – a dangerous disease for people (especially for pregnant women).

Cats can infect helminthes: it is enough not to wash properly the crops from the bed.

Folk ways to scare away the neighbor's cats from the garden plot

That's how a harmless creature that recently purred peacefully on the couch, curled up in a cozy ball, becomes a real barbarian in the eyes of the owners. And then there uninvited guests with tails from neighboring plots and cats that are "in free flight. The problem becomes a global scale. Starts brainstorming in search of an answer to the question "How to wean the neighbor's cats from their property and teach his own to observe the norms of decency? Here are a few methods from the folk piggy bank.

Repellent plants

Certain plant smells are strongly objectionable to cats. These include:

This trio will beautify the garden and tickle purr-fect whiskers with an unpleasant odor.

Two other garden "scarecrows" are wormwood and coleus dogwood. Planted around the perimeter of the plot, they will become a reliable barrier to furry "pests".

You can plant tobacco, but dried and crushed leaves of this plant, scattered over the plot, are good as a repellent.

Vinegar

Ammonia, kerosene, gasoline and crealine are at the same level as vinegar: they are all intolerant to the delicate sense of smell of cats.

Old rags are moistened with these "stinky" liquids and scattered around the area. This budget option will ruin the appearance of the garden, but the cats will realize that this area should be avoided.

Homemade repellents

Spraying is a way to protect plantings without scattering foreign objects.

Chopped garlic and a few drops of citrus essential oil are added to the mixture. Pour the liquid into a spray bottle and spray the soil under the plants.

Vinegar-soap solution can be prepared. To do this, you need to mix vinegar, liquid soap and water in equal proportions. With this composition, spray the areas that cats most often use as a toilet.

Vinegar quickly wears off, so the procedure of spreading rags or spraying will have to be repeated periodically.

How to protect the vegetable garden from dogs

The best way to protect your plantings from dogs is to train your dog not to go into forbidden territory. However, in addition to this, you can build a high fence of chain-link fencing around the perimeter of the garden. And for such protection it is not necessary to make reliable poles – it is enough to drive a metal armature into the ground (its diameter should be large enough to withstand the pressure of the mesh). Then the mesh is attached to the armature, leaving a place for the passage to the beds. To make such a structure look more aesthetically pleasing, you can plant climbing plants along it.

How to protect beds from birds

Another danger that threatens the garden and vegetable garden is birds. These birds like to eat sweet strawberries or nibble on ripening cherries. How do you protect your crops from birds?

Stuffed Birds

The most well-known way to protect the garden from birds is a scarecrow. The simplest scarecrow can be made by anyone. To do this, you need to connect two sticks at right angles: the long one is the "torso" and the short one is the "arms". Any bag stuffed with straw, for example, will turn out a head. It remains to dress up the scarecrow in unnecessary clothing and put the head on a stick – and your "protector" will perform its function – to scare away birds.

To make it more movable (birds quickly get used to a stationary scarecrow and stop reacting to it), add ribbons cut from polyethylene film to the scarecrow or a whirligig (about it – below). Fluttering ribbons and a rustling whirligig will make the birds fly away from your property.

Swivel

Plastic bottles can be used to make many useful items for the garden. One option is a bird repellent turntable. It does not take long to make. From three or four sides of the bottle, cut out "blades" and bend them outward. Then hang the turntable on a metal spike or a sturdy stick and wait for the wind. With each gust of wind the impeller will make a sound which will make the birds leave your property.

Netting

To protect beds from birds, use a special netting with fine mesh. It lets in light and moisture, does not interfere with pollination, does not interfere with feeding, but at the same time deprives the birds of the opportunity to get to the fruits. The net is stretched on pegs hammered on the perimeter of the bed, or on a frame of arcs. During harvesting or for weeding or loosening it is not necessary to remove the material completely – it is enough to lift its edges.