Foxes and cats absolute nightmare this year

[Jeremy424]

Now I know why gardeners hate these creatures so much, feels like I've had the wind taken out of me. In my second year of growing veg and cultivated another part of the garden. Little did I know this part is being used as a through-fare, toilet and general play-area for the neighbourhoods foxes and cats. Counted at least 4 cats and have seen groups of up to 3 foxes bold as brass in the middle of the day and not scared of clapping, loud sounds or those night-lights (I think neighbours are feeding these dog food or something).

It started with disturbed earth and trampled seedlings, seeds thrown all over the place so they germinate outside of my rotation plan, then progressed to finding loads of little 'presents' copious amounts of turds, birds carcasses on my fennel, little bird heads in my parsnip holes...

Today was the worst. Woke up to find devastation in the garden. The hoops and netting making a tunnel for my chard has been squashed in the middle right down to the ground. Looks like something has jumped on top and it has squashed some of the chard below. I had loads of twine zig-zagging between canes as part of improvised little rectangle plots for each type of veg. These have been snapped and some of the canes lying on the ground. I can see their footprints and they've just cut straight through the middle without regard for anything in their way.

I've tried night-lights, scent-off, netting, a scare-crow and ultra-sound, bramble cuttings draped over the ground. Nothing seems to work. Coming to see chicken-wire or some such other mesh as the only way, but really can't afford to cover everything with this. Any ideas?

[Feral007]

Best of luck, hard to anything with the wildlife, or cats.

[scarey55]

Hello Jeremy, and welcome to the Vine
If you put cats in the search area at the top of this page you will find quite a lot of ideas on what to do.
This one has a lot of links to the other threads (4th post) that may help - thank you TwoSheds.

[PAULW]

If you were to stretch pea/bean netting horizontally across the plot this would make it uncomfortable for anything crossing the plot, the other thing is to criss croos the plot with netting forming pockets so cutting off an easy escape route. well aimed jets of water or a sprinkler set up ready to turn the tap on when you get visitors may help

[Rabidbun]

It's not cheap, but has been effective for me - netting over fruit cages. This year I've used strong black netting over a frame of aluminium poles connected with connectors from Harrods Horticultural. They are all around a metre to a metre and a half high and have so far kept all the cats out. Though the one next to the fence needed a roof (as one cat jumped down to foul then back up again).

I did start off using bamboo though till I could afford the aluminium, which was rickety but did the job. The strong netting was the main thing, and investing in connectors for the bamboo that could be used as and when I could afford aluminium poles.

Good luck with it, it is gutting to try new things to keep them off to have them get around them to your seedlings.

Edit: another thing which stopped cats going on the soil were those wire mesh shelves from blowaway greenhouses and planting between or through them - could be worth asking on your local freecycle incase anyone has old ones they want rid of?

[GardenFaery]

Lurcher lurchers lurchers I LOVE mine
Never a small furry probem for a mile radius..... sometimes a big cuddly furry problem lol but never a small furry one LOL

[Farmer_Gyles]

the local fox dug up all my carrots last week .... i'm seriously tempted to get a couple of chicken breasts and some rat poison .....