Building the Patio Raised Bed 

The advice I was offered was to add clean cracked egg shells because they won’t like the feel and it will keep the slugs away from your plants also. I was also told you could take plastic forks and place them throughout with the tines up to keep all wildlife from trampling . I’ve also purchased catnip seed to create a separate more cat friendly environment for those outdoor cats of the neighborhood. I’ve been trying to research ways to deter the rabbits who live in my back garden from eating everything. I haven’t read anything odor wise to deter cats but rodents are adverse to garlic and other strong odors. Several Gardner’s suggest grating Irish Spring soap to place along the outside borders of your garden to deter wildlife. I do know the plastic fork suggestion deters the squirrels from using my planters as hiding places. Best of luck! You’ve done a lot of work thus far.

That’s was quite a project! Here in Canada we mostly keep our cats inside, our kitty Molly loves to look out the window at the little birdies and squirrels she would like to be their friend, they could even come for dinner 🍴! Klaus

I've just found your youtube channel and have been binge watching your videos while working from home! Oh my. I'm addicted! It's a young, female Monty Don and I couldn't feel more inspired!

For the time being... you can place stainless steel forks (dinner forks) in the soil to keep the cats out. It sounds unpleasant but, they get the drift real fast about where to put their sweet feet. Straight up and possibly pounded out flat. Thrift stores have a gazillion.

Oh wow, Tanya. My Motorised Rotary soil sifter would have been ideal there. Would have certainly got rid of the crocosmia bulbs and any other weeds. Planter looks fantastic though. Will be great to see the other beds in too. Cats can be a pain to keep out of the beds. Great video again. Tony

Such a cute kitty. Your raised bed is so nice. I can’t wait to see the growing plants.

looks great

Amazing work Tanya. That is going to look fantastic.

Great job! I love it! I have just found out myself how expensive it is to fill a garden bed! Bulk delivery is definitely the best way to go. Love your channel and you.

Hi Tanya What about growing a patch of catnip, and also having a sort of dry cleared area of dirt in a sunny place for your cats to nap and roll in. Until plants get established you can cover plants with chicken wire. Good Luck!

Lovely project! As far as cats go it's a combination of things. #1 don't have open soil..mulch everything well. #2 Rocks work well for containers. Just cover the soil with pebbles and it deters them. #3 There is a sprinkler that is motion sensing and you can set that up if the situation warrants it.

i just knew you'd make something magical out of those patio beds...and geez, those cats...i laugh because my yard seems to be the public toilet for all animals large and small...one day it's a pile of moose poop...next day it's the bear...the flowers in the back yard are dotted with deer droppings... too funny...thank you again for sharing the garden renovation...spring is coming...yay

Open soil is an invitation for kitties--for sure. I've found that mulching my beds deters them. I use natural hardwood mulch in perennial beds and grass clippings in the veg beds.

Another informative video. Good work!

I love your raised beds on the patio I would say the only thing you could do to keep the cats out of your beds Is cover them up until your able to plant In them I think once there full of plants they should stay out and yes I agree use pebbles and mulch well

Wow. Looks great. You go girl! I’m very impressed. Well, good luck keeping cats out. Mine just walked on some young radish seedlings. Arg!! They are so curious.

Wow! You got a lot of work done! Great job! Instead of a cuppa tea, I would have had a hot bath and a glass of wine😉

Certainly is a transformation. Good work!

Patio is looking good. Filling raised beds as filled as you can is a good tip. They will settle and drop below the raised edge. Yeah cats love to leave gifts in the garden soil usually right after a planting! Best advice is cover any loose soil with a barrier. Looks good to have a helper when doing a project. It's never easy working alone. Maybe instead of plain one color paint do the wall with a stencil or something jazzy like that. If you art maybe a painted scene of some sort. Your weather looks so good. Its getting there for us. Few more weeks I'll be digging soil.cheers Happy St Patrick's day to you

looking good you should do well this year, good luck!

I recently fell in love with crocosmias on a vacation on the western side of Michigan last summer. I have been unable to find them in any of my local garden centers and have bought seeds online. I cannot bring myself to pay $5 a bulb for them. It breaks my heart to see you toss them away! Congratulations though! The garden looks wonderful. It's such an exciting time to create a garden from scratch.

We have many cats in our neighborhood and our experience has been while raised beds are not planted cats like to use but once veggies are planted and put mulch down they do not bother anymore. Good Luck.

To keep cars out of the beds use bottled water. Keep the water in a clear 2L bottle. Not shore how it works but growing on that’s all I ever seen in people’s gardens in iom. Try it for a month see if it works as every garden growing up had them to keep cars out so must work. Im a gardener / greenskeeper by trade an still see this today. Good luck

Crocosmia is nice in small amounts. Trouble is, it grows into large amounts fairly fast. Good luck.

Great job! Looks fabulous. Just sit back a bit now and dream of the possibilities. Thanks for sharing . Love it

Cats are taking over. Everything you own is now theirs. Any resistance is futile, Tanya.

Dash I guessed wrong - you’re ahead of me, need to get my act together and get the greenhouse cleaned. Good job on those beds.

Will be well worth it ..love love the cat try citris to stop them

I heard form many people they are using coffee grounds to repel cats. Same time it is good fertilizer for at least roses :) I personally have no experience with that so can not confirm it but worth to try i guess.

Wow. If you were here, you could make a lot of money selling the crocrosmia. I have purchased it several times over the years and they aren't cheap and they haven't been particularly hardy so I still don't have any perennialized in my garden. Too much of anything, right? :) however I know your plans for the bed will be fantastic, and, super impressed with the raised bed you built.

nice job. I'm hoping to do some raised beds myself soon. I hear ostriches are good at keeping cats away. You should get one for your back garden.

A small cat garden can help. I have a raised sunning 2'x10' board with cat friendly plants like catnip.

I'd loved to have you guys as neighbors! Looking great so far! I have no tips on the kitty issue!

You could fill the raised beds with branches and twigs and any non invasive garden waste that you have. This will bulk it out so you don't need to put as much soil in, which will save you money. The garden waste will just break down over time and the branches will retain water as they break down. Similar to a Hugelkultur bed.

The bed looks cool, with its thick boards and its custom shape that fits right in. What I would have done differently (actually, what I have done differently, as I built mine about the same way as you did) : coat it in linseed oil + 1/5 V/V turpentine then do it again a day or two later then coat the inside with melted pine tar + charcoal powder (yes it will smell awful, but only for a couple of days) then staple geotextile fabric on the inside This way they last many years more, you don't want to rebuild them every 5-7 years do you?

Orange peels work well as a cat scat.

Great job! Looking forward to seeing it all planted up! :) Are you going to cut into the fabric when planting the fruit trees or do they have enough room for their roots in the raised bed?

May I ask where you got the timber from and what it is?, is it treated with anything or did you seal it yourself?. I'm looking to make some beds for my garden, also. Great project!. Looking forward to seeing what you do next. I'm just at the beginnings of doing my garden up in Brighton.

I would like to get all your's crocosmia! :-) Here in Norway, this grown not so god. :-( But I love this so much!

Do you have any advice on planting a raised bed on top of a concrete slab? My boys use to use the slab to play basketball on but I would like to grow food on it instead of it just sitting empty now that they don’t use that space anymore. Thanks.

OMG, what a huge amount of work done by a woman herself! Tanya, I wonder if you have Russian "roots"? Your determination and reasonable approach looks familiar ))

Lot of juggling between the allotment and your own place or has the allotment taken a step back on your time ?

Could try coffee granules or used coffee grounds to keep the cats at bay

My grandmother used to put cayenne pepper in her garden bed to keep cats out🥵

Use the leaves of your holly tree .. The cats cant walk or sit on them and leave that patch...😀

Cats don't like smelly plants. Try lavender, marigolds, etc.

Is the wood you used treated in any way? I'm fortunate in that I have redwood readily available and not too terribly expensive here in California, but I see a lot of people using treated wood and it always makes me sort of cringe. As for the cats, my suggestion is probably not the most popular but, dogs. Now before anyone starts hating on me, I live in a housing tract and there are not only neighbor cats of all shapes and sizes but feral too. One has taken to living in our back yard and once the raised beds are done and the dogs are allowed back in there I expect it will no longer be in the garden. I am building this stray/feral a house to live in and it has access to my water fountain out front, and if I can feed it without attracting the wandering urban raccoons and opossums I will. We try to keep cats and dogs that get along with each other so they know one another as "family", or pack siblings, and have even seen one of our cats come sprinting home with another stranger cat hot on his heels. Once he made it safely into our fenced in yard our dogs made it clear whatever beef the stranger cat had with him ended at the fence. So, I don't see dogs as a deterrent as being mean to cats, so long as it is applied with these things in mind.

To get rid of cats get a dog Seriously though great looking raised beds thanks

Do you work alone, where is your husband?