Keeping cat out of garden

[Laura]

One of the neighbors (current or previous, I'm not sure) has a cat that hangs out in my yard a lot. I never really minded because the cat is quite friendly and I never find mess anywhere. I would rather the cat not hang out in my garden boxes though. I searched on the internet and found some suggestions on how to keep the cat out. Some of the fixes, like a cayenne solution, seem mean. I did peel some grapefruit and scattered the peels in the garden. I am a bit reluctant to fence in the gardens, mostly because I don't like the look of that.
Do you have any tried and true cat repellants? I don't want to harm her, just keep my gardens safe.

[ZombieBait]

I'm actually not opposed to the red pepper flakes. It worked well for us with a neighbor that had 9 million cats and none of them seemed any worse for wear.

[Snowshoe]

The preferred alternative to pepper is peppermint. Oil of peppermint. Kinder to the eyes as it's less likely to blow into them. Soak a cotton ball with it, place in box. Not cheap and you do have to replace it after rain or in a week or so. Works well on squirrels too. I have had success deterring my cats from some furniture indoors with orange peel. A citrus potpourri works well also but you're not going to put potpourri outside, I bet. A covering of wire mesh just under the soil surface prevents digging but that's kind of awkward for you to work around. A mulch of sharp stones is discouraging too but also not easy to use in planter boxes. Other than that my favourite is automatic sprinklers.

[BogeyBaby]

Or a can of Sssscat. It's motion activated condensed air that scares the cat away. You put it in a place where you or your dogs won't inadvertently set it off.

[ZRabbits]

You won't like how my husband keeps cats out of our yard. Definitely would think it mean, but it does work.

Go with the pepper and peppermint. Hoping can keep cats out as they killed all our plants in the garden because they were making our garden their litter box.

KAZ

[janedoe]

I have never found a solution to this other than covering the areas they can get to.

[POPTOP]

Used peppermint last year and it worked great. Soil is a little sandy, blackberry bushes, dogs can't get to it to chase the cats away. Also use granulated fox urine around the perimeter of the yard to keep out skunks. Found it on Amazon. Just discovered our local feed store carried it also.

[Laura]

Thank you all! I think I will try the peppermint to augment my citrus. If that doesn't work, I will get the motion-activated sprinkler.
I don't have to worry about dogs getting in it this year. Last year, I used deer netting to keep Jake out of the tomatoes. He surely loved vegetables! I have a video of him pulling cherry tomatoes off the plants.

[PATEX]

Chicken wire just under the soil -- they won't like it when they dig. ACO told me to bury plastic forks in the dirt, tine side up. Orange peels work, but only for like a day. Likewise, there is a repellent that you can sprinkle, something with Boundary in the title. I got it from PetEdge and it worked well, but you had to reapply daily. I put it on the outside of the fence to keep the cat from jumping in because I didn't want the dogs to mess with it.