Does anyone know anything about gardening?

Anyone got any tips for stopping the neighbourhood cat shitting in my flower beds, veg patch and lawn...?

Every morning I have to go out and play 'find the turd' before I can let the kids out into the garden.

It boils my fucking piss.
I need a solution to keep the cat out of my garden, before I buy an air rifle.

Experimenting with some D-limonene based repellent at the moment which seems to be having some effect.

Under advice from our gardener we are doing exactly this. Smaller branches removed from the base to encourage the larger stems to grow up and not out. Then allow it to grow out at the top when we get the desired shape.

Get a BIG cat.

The only success I’ve had is with a motion sensor activated water spraying thing. Everything else the fuckers pay absolutely zero heed to. You do have to remember to turn it off when you head outside though or you get wet, and they’re fairly fragile so if you leave them outside over winter they will die.

(I don’t currently have one, as I didn’t replace the one that died over winter, so I’ve been reduced to running out into the garden with a jug full of water yelling at the little bastards and generally looking like a man who has lost his mind)

I planted out half a dozen sunflowers I have been raising in the greenhouse. I knew that the flower heads followed the sun but it's amazing to see the leaves twist and turn to basically be a 90 degrees to the sun before there is any sign of the flower head. Each plant is in a different part of the garden so all have a slightly different angle of attack that moves during the day.

Nature at its' beautiful best.

My dad has got one, it's just a big iron pole with a pointy end... Hexagonal cross section, the non pointy end has been rounded over... What are they called?

Eric.

Or a wrecking bar.

Should I move the one on the left? It perks up a bit at night but flops back down once the sun comes out

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looks like it just needs more water?

There you go...

It does look that way but I gave it a good drink when I planted it and the soil is still moist...

If recently planted it may be that the compost from the pot is drying out and it doesn't have roots into the surrounding soil

Oh ok that makes sense. So, more water?

I'd try that first; yeah.

I thought they were called a pin.
Mine is 6ft x 3”, I can barely lift it on and off my truck but it’ll batter it’s way through stone, concrete, steel toecaps, sewage pipes and anything else in its way.
Chisel end for chopping through slabs/tarmac or levering stuff. Pointy end for everything else. I keep a vague edge on the chisel end. It’ll def make its way thru clay better than an auger in my experience.

And second that every shed needs a billhook and mattock. Def fibreglass handle not wood for mattock.

A billhook and a mattock were the stock in trade of the People's Militia forced
into service as expendable infantry for hundreds of years.
Replace the handle of a Yorkshire billhook with a long stout pole
and you have a Pikeman who can dismount light cavalry.

And,
truly in the realms of genuine enquiry,
which style of billhook does anyone recommend?

I have two, a newton pattern and a block bill with a back hook.
Newton for most stuff, I don’t like to curved a point as it tends to get stuck in stuff/blunted in the ground.
Block with back hook is great for pulling brambles/climbers etc and the block blade is thicker than my newton for splitting stuff and general chopping. A slasher(billhook on a stick) is also handy for pruning fruit trees and other spiky stuff at arms length.

Now I have to measure my weapon....

5'8" x 2", I am a lightweight.

I’ll third what’s been said about the big spiky pole, I nicked my dads years ago and it always finds a use as a pry bar. I would also recommend one of the heavy fence post hole digging spades like this - others are available

I hired a couple of old fellas to dig a trench, and they used a toothpick instead of the kango on offer to break up andless amounts of fencepost concrete.

Watching one of them swinging a sledge hammer at the top of it, inches from the other guy, was terrifying.

Tamping bar is useful too sometimes.
I also love the gonging of a post basher ringing out on a cold winters morn.

There used to be a much more usable 4ft one on my truck as well but I’m pretty sure I left it on site somewhere.

Have you looked inside your labourers?