Pet Kitties

So I've been seeing posts about deterring cats from the garden. Does anyone have outdoor kitties as pets (not feral) and if so has your experience been bad (do you have to do things to keep them out?) We seem to have inherited an outdoor kitty. She was around last spring and summer, but I didn't really see her alot until the fall. She does tend to be in the garden area, she likes to hang under our side steps, but I've not noticed her getting into the boxes or eating anything last year. We trapped her and had her spayed and she got a rabies shot, and she has been spending the super cold nights this winter in our shed. With all the handling that we have done with her she has become rather friendly and is closer to pet status than random feral cat status. I'm hoping her presence will keep the bunnies at bay (I want to try to go fence free this year hopefully) and I plan on planting a pot of catnip for her outside of my garden area (about 20' away near the shed).

Anyway, just looking to hear about anyone's experience in this kitty department, good or bad, so I can prepare.

When I started my gardening in 2009 I had 3 cats and my son and his family had 3 (I live in an in-law daylight basement apt in his home) but they were all much older and set in their ways, I guess. We never had any problems with the cats in the veggie garden. They liked to lie in the shade of the rose bushes most of the time or under the garden bench which is a good distance from the veggie plots and my son's liked rambling in the woods around the property. Happily I never saw any in the raised beds.

My cat never bothered the square foot boxes, I assume because of the grids, but occasionally I would catch her digging in the raised beds when the soil was freshly turned. You might try making yours a sandpile for digging - they seem to look for the easiest place to do their business.

Our neighbors go to AZ every year from October thru April, so we are Winter Mom and Pop to their cat. She is a lovely outdoor cat but now that we are in our rainy season, she has decided that the pots on my porch are her new litterbox. She not only poos, but she also digs the mix out of the box (normal covering the evidence activity for a cat). Fresh mix or small seedlings are her boxes of choice. The last pot she "used" I had just filled with new Mel's Mix.

I did notice her in my raised bed garden last summer and fall if I forgot to close the deer netting, but mostly she just laid in the sun.

For my porch pots, I added some forks, pointy end up, just today. That was recommended by someone on this forum a few months ago.

Put some Catgrass or Catnip elsewhere, away from your garden. That should keep them busy! Stoned, but busy

Aub wrote:Put some Catgrass or Catnip elsewhere, away from your garden. That should keep them busy! Stoned, but busy

Lol. When I told my husband I was going to plant some catnip for her outside the garden, he was like "oh great, you are going to turn her into a druggie!"