IF you are a keen gardener you may sometimes find your patience running rather thin when cats scratch where you have just sown seeds or planted out seedlings as they always make a beeline for any newly disturbed soil.

Do not despair. Pelleted chicken manure bought as a general fertilizer is the answer and is available from garden centres. Spread the pellets around your crops and cats will keep well clear. They have a pungent smell which is presumably why cats don't like it.

Unfortunately, dogs love the stuff, so if you are a dog owner, it's not for you. The answer here is to keep the soil damp at all times. This will discourage cats from scratching as they prefer dry soil.

Keeping neighbourhood cats from your garden can easily be achieved by a squirt from a loaded water pistol or empty washing up liquid bottle filled with water. They will soon get the message.

If you are a cat owner having trouble with the neighbours over your cat using their garden as a toilet, here is a suggestion which may help.

Find a quiet sheltered place in your own garden, dig a hole and empty in a bag of compost. Add to this the contents of your cat's litter tray. The soft soil is liked by cats as it is easy for them to dig over and, because you have already emptied their litter tray into it containing their own smell, it encourages them to use it for their own personal toilet.

Hedgehog droppings are often found on lawns and in flower beds and these can be mistaken for cat droppings, so before jumping to conclusions please make sure poor old puss isn't getting blamed for something he did not do.

Josephine Harwood,

Moor Park Avenue, Bispham.