Cat Scratch Fever (yes, this is a real post)

To the casual observer, this may look like a newly dug plot that’s waiting for vegetable seedlings. To a cat, it resembles nothing more than a Hilton-style litter tray, complete with grass to eat and regurgitate later. Over the space of a week, I managed to collect two small plastic buckets of cat poo. I’m not happy.

I adore my own cat, Cleo. She’s a fully paid-up member of our family, and despite a nasal condition that leads to sleepless nights (for us) and a predilection for bulimia, I wouldn’t trade her for the world. To be honest with you, I’m a lover of cats in general – although the hairless ones freak me out a little bit.

The Green Centre boasts three main neighbourhood moggies:

• a black cat that loves our shed roof and likes to sit and watch everything that’s happening. He won’t come within five yards of us, mind you.
• a tabby that thinks he can take on any of the seagulls and win, until they swoop down and he embarrasses himself and runs off.
• Cleo’s exact twin in Tom form, who we’ve christened Ralph, because he looks like a Ralph. He occasionally sleeps in the meeting room, on the couch.

After spending the day glaring at them and calling them Anglo-Saxon and frankly coarse names, they’ve taken to hiding in the shrubbery and glaring back at me. They also come out at night and have poo parties and then laugh about it later. I decided that enough was enough and reached for the secateurs.

I hasten to add that this was not some Tarantino-style revenge attack on the cats, their tails or indeed any other part of their anatomy, although I did fantasise about acquiring some corks and a polo mallet. The secateurs were destined for next door’s overhanging holly tree – Ilex to those of us at horticultural college.

Holly leaves have jolly spiky edges, which I know from the vast quantity I sat on over the summer. Those jolly spiky edges are very useful when strewn liberally across any sort of open ground as a deterrent against tender paws bracing for a good dump in the dirt.

I flung the leaves hither and thither, laughed somewhat maniacally, and went home smug in the knowledge that the Cat Army would have to find somewhere else to hold their furtive faecal meetings. I slept very well that night, even with Cleo wrapped around my head, snoring.

Several days passed and I positively bounded up to see Dave and his pristine soil. I peered and smiled and nodded – and then I spotted the minute quasi molehill. The little bastards had braced themselves on the edge, shovelled dirt over the offending leaves and shat on the spot. I’d like to say that I was furious at this point, but sheer admiration got the better of me. If I had a hat on at that moment, I would have taken it off to them.

Instead, I hauled a gigantic length of black tarpaulin out of the shed, washed it down and dumped it, unceremoniously, on the bare earth. Let’s see what they make of that development.

Comments

[Anne]

Oh my, I fight the cat poo here continually. I put up little yarn fences, which worked for a while (quite a good long while). See how well it works here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/librarianguish/3538265132/

The cat eventually decided she could get around it, and I find plenty of poo here and there in the garden. I now put straw over all of the unused parts of the garden, but she still gets in there for a good poo fest - despite plenty of other nice places for her in the yard. I've wondered if there are more cats involved in this defilement of my garden than just her, but don't know for sure.

I will have to try the holly leaves - we have a nice bush in the back of the yard, with plenty of leaves to spare...

[Kate]

I gave up on keeping large plants in my house for years because of this! But the other day someone suggested wooden skewers.. and it makes so much sense. If you stake them throughout the garden, in theory, it would make it very difficult for any little kitty to cop a squat

[K.]

Two observations:

You've shown us pics of the soil before. It looks woefully bereft of organic material! Sand, small pebbles, but little organic stuff. I'm guessing that the plants come up a little anemic in this soil, and you must be close to the ocean?

The natural world has a remarkable property in that it's disparate elements work together to produce a beneficial whole. In this case, the cats, for reasons completely unrelated to yours or the soils needs, are fertilizing it with exact what the soil ( and you ) need. Ideally, they create this great fertilizer by eating things your garden ( and you ) don't need, namely voles, moles, and rats. I feed mine too many kibbles, so he tends to just to badger and torment the little monsters; enough though that when they tunnel near something I want to protect a couple of fresh Oscar brand fertilizier logs in the hole discourages further tunnelling.

I mean really, look at it this way. You'll spend hours trying to get rid of the cat shit, only to dump pounds of cow shit into it's place. Does this make any sense?

[john frederick]

Plant a patch of catnip away from garden. get a dog

[GeorgyGirl]

k - seriously, I just have a really really shit camera!

[tilly t]

hmmmmm ... apparently if you put coffee grounds--pre or post coffee--those are a deterrent for the furtive felines. (as, supposedly, are mustard oil, cayenne pepper, pipe tobacco, lavender oil, lemon grass oil, citronella oil, pine cones, broken nut shells, egg shells ... you get the picture.)

[K.]

GG - Not only are they fertilizing your patch, they're doing it in the right way ( just at the soil surface ) at the right time ( fall ). Just leave things be until spring. The poop will decompose and the soil be that much better, with no work on your part. What the cats _won't_ do is eat your fruit, vegetables, and flower bulbs. Moreover, the rabbits and moles will tend to avoid that spot for fear of your new feline friends. The gardening gods are smiling upon you. Bask in their cheery glow.

[cat insurance]

that is a bad patch of soil.
anyway. leave them cats alone. you know their poo is fertalizer right?

[GeorgyGirl]

Hi everyone,

As you may or may not have guessed, I'm no longer blogging with WFMU. There's been a bit of a reshuffle, and it was decided that gardening had no place on a music blog, which is fair enough I guess.

Thanks to everyone for your comments over the months and do keep in touch.

As to the negative comments on the soil - well, we had a full year's worth of excellent vegetables, so I guess it's full of organic goodies after all. Never judge anything by a poorly shot photo ;)

Happy 2010 everyone, and enjoy the music. :)