User avatar
Runningtrails
Senior Member
Posts: 184
Joined: Tue Oct 19, 2010 10:52 am
Location: Barrie, Ontario,Canada

I wouldn't live in the country without a cat in the garden! My own large male cat is allowed to roam at will most of the time. He is outside all night in the growing season, staying indoors all winter. Our little girl kittie is allowed outside in the summer with me. We live in the country and he is a fab hunter. Before we had cats, we had field mice everywhere! In the house and in the garden! They would eat the bottoms of the pea pods and beans and other veggies and roam the kitchen at night at will. I still see the odd mouse hole in the garden but I know those mice won't be there long with Shadow on the prowl.

What he doesn't eat, he lines up on the porch. I know he's had a mouse when I find the stomach on the porch, almost every night lately. That's the only part he won't eat. He doesn't eat the squirrels, chipmonks or moles that he kills. Just leaves them for me.

For a month or so this summer, he started bringing me live mice to kill myself :roll: That didn't last long, thankfully!

I rarely find cat poop in the garden areas. We (cat and I) frequent that area enough and his cat nip grows there that he eats, so I guess he is not inclined to poop there. He uses the wild area for that, I assume. He buries it anyway, so if he is pooping in the garden, I don't know about it, which suits me.

They are both very healthy, disease free cats and the country field mice he eats are not prone to the diseases and worms that city garbage mice have.

Outdoor cats in the city are a completely different thing.

john gault
Green Thumb
Posts: 461
Joined: Sun Jul 10, 2011 4:53 pm
Location: Atlantic Beach, Fl. (USDA Hardiness Zone 9a)

I've heard orange and other citrus peels keep the cats and dogs away. I'm kind of skeptical, but does anyone have experience using these type peels in the garden.

At best, I would think that their repellant qualities wouldn't last too long and it would take a lot of peels. But I don't know...



Return to “Organic Gardening Forum”