Our two cats seems to have been more destructive in my garden than usual this year. Maybe it is because the kids aren’t outside with them as much, plus the cats are older and lazier less mobile. They still catch mice and squirrels periodically; and I think they keep some bird damage in my garden at bay, but they have been using my raised beds more thoroughly as litter boxes – right after I have carefully planted seeds.
I figured that anything I used as a cover, to keep the cats out, needed to
- let light through
- let water through
- be easy to move for weeding and planting
- have enough height to protect young seedlings up to a few inches tall
- be fairly simple to make
- be relatively inexpensive
And thus, I came up with my reusable covers made out of welded wire fencing, the same wire fencing that we used to make chicken tunnels. I made a youtube video about it, that starts out with cute little kittens, but soon gets to showing how I made my cat barrier covers. Now, I can get to re-planting and planting there with more hope of success. (below the video I list some basic points about building them for reference.)
– I used most a hundred foot roll of 4 foot wide wire fencing to cover four 12 foot long by 4 foot wide by 1 foot tall raised beds.
– Each raised bed is covered by three sections or cover modules.
– I cut the wire fencing midway between the parallel wires so that I had prongs to help secure and connect.
– Wire fencing is very sharp where cut.
– The end sections of the two end modules could be attached at the top with the pieces or prongs left sticking out, but I usually had to cut a piece of fence tying wire to attach the bottom corners of the end panel to the sides of the end cover module.
– The cats have not bothered my raised beds since I put the wire covers on.