[sarah-king]

A cat keeps digging up parts of my raised beds anyone any good ideas on what i can use to cover them or keep the cat away?

[stentman]

Always an issue for me as my next door neighbour has three of the things. Cats like to scrape a little hole and then do what cats do and recently dug ground is easier for them to do that in I guess. I have tried pepper dust and other commerical "deterents" and had minimal succes with any of them, plus they need to be topped up regularly. I now use a selection of physical barriers. My sweetcorn seedings are currently covered by 3 upturned old wire shelves from a long discarded freezer, my tiny radish with an big old plastic bread tray, plus various bits of sticks and twigs scattering in a pleasing pattern around the raised beds. For me a physical barrier of some kind is the only way I can be sure of cats not digging up what I have spent time nuturing and planting. 

[paintedlady]

I have some old trellising which I use specifically to lay over freshly turned soil and sowings to keep the cats off and is very effective 

[bigben]

I have only been using this site for a year or so and have seen most threads about cat issues locked as they move away from the helpful start to become rather heated.

That said it is a real and valid issue. Would it be possible to create a guide of helpful and positive suggestions about what to do in this situation similar to the one on clearing an allotment and refer people to that?

[penance]

Netting!
We have 3 cats and it was an issue when i first started growing. Tried a few different things but the one with 100% success is putting netting over the ground.
If they cant dig they move on to somewhere else.

[Rowan]

My cat has taken to using the new raised beds in the garden a his personal litter tray. I used netting ot keep him out of any beds i didn't want disturbed. He is now using the Onion bed, apart form the odd bent over onion from his fat backside he's not doing too much harm. (he only seems to wee in the onion bed)

If your problem cat is anything like mine, you'll not get it to stop, so a barrier (netting) is the only option.

Ta

Ro

[Plottered]

Another one for voting for netting its the only real way i can keep the neighbours cats  off my raised beds at home.

[oldcow]

I second the suggestion to add netting. Keep the size small and it will work for other critters as well - I thought I had a problem with cats getting in the raised boxes, until I found out it was actually a squirrel digging enthusiastically in it...

[Lewjam]

i have the same problem, i just put down clippings from my hawthorn hedge... funny they don’t seem to enjoy squatting on that!

[JayG]

My house has a drive running alongside it which makes my garden easy to access for all the local cats who each seem to have their own preferred time of day to go on patrol (usually includes intense "watching" of the goldfish in my pond which is fortunately netted!)

Cats are creatures of habit and luckily the local ones are in the habit of pooing elsewhere ("spraying"; different matter!)

From time to time I have noticed them doing what I'd rather they didn't do in a freshly raked seed-bed, but these days there are so many pigeons about that I have to drape plastic netting over nearly everything anyway and that seems to be enough to put the cats off because they can't "scrat"!

[digby]

I lay down the sticks that I use later as pea sticks over the area - seems to work