Thursday 22 March 2012

Water, compost and cats...

Having adjusted our water butt system, thought I'd show you it. Both these butts stand behind our garage. Each one takes one gutter from either side of its roof. The right one overflows into the left. The left one now overflows into the dustbin and from the dustbin, it goes off to our little dustbin pond.



This year is the first time we have got 'laid' frog spawn in it. Previously, I had to scoop some out of the front pond and transfer it.

These are our two compost bins. 


The right one (bleached by the sun as it goes down) was emptied and sieved. We got around 200 litres of beautiful compost. The left one, which was 3/4 full, was transferred into the empty one. It is now closed off (hence the plant pot in front of it) and won't be opened again until Spring next year. We shall now begin to fill the left hand one again.

Finally, like most of you, we have had our fair share of cats going to the toilet in the garden. As they nearly always came over the back fences, we have prevented them coming in by add a 1 foot tall piece of clematis netting along the fences.

 
I did see a cat try to walk along it but the pointed tops made it uncomfortable. It doesn't hurt them, just deters them. They can't jump over it as it is too wobbly.

However, the next door neighbour has his daughter staying for a few weeks and she has brought her two cats with her. They have gone in everyone's garden so far and we are all a little fed up. Can't stand accidentally picking it up/treading in it etc. I know one of them is coming in over our front side gate, so have put this up and hope it keeps them out. 

 
If not, I'll have to think about doing something else. Don't get me wrong, I've nothing against cats at all, but their toilet is another thing altogether.

4 comments:

  1. Good idea for fence tops! My fence to one of my neighbours is quite low and cat`s jump this very easily. But, as this fence is also very long I can`t see me being able to put trellis all the way to deter the little fury buggers.

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    1. We have fenced off so far, about 11 x 6' panels. We bought a large 10m roll and cut it into 4 x 1' depths, giving us 40m in total. We used a staple gun to attach it just at the bottom so it is floppy. Then every now and then we have plaited a cane vertically to keep some tension in, especially where the wood pigeons attempt to land on it.

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  2. We have a number of cats that visit our garden, but luckily we don't really have any bare soil for them to use.Mostly they sit by the pond, occasionally drinking from it. We would have no way of keeping them out if they were a nuisance because we have hedges not fences , and they just scuttle through the bottom of those! We had a big problem at the old house with cats using the front garden as a toilet, but it couldn't be fenced off so I just had to be extra vigilant when gardening!Do they use your veg growing raised beds as a toilet?

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    1. No thank goodness. Mostly they are kept out of the back garden its just the neighbours daughters cats but hopefully they will be gone very soon. When they do get it, they are pooing in the flower areas. I have net tops that go over the raised beds until the vegetables are too tall.

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