Mis­lead­ing labels

Not only plants can be tox­ic, fer­til­iz­ers and pes­ti­cides can be too. Cats can poi­son them­selves by eat­ing and chew­ing on chem­i­cal­ly treat­ed plants, breath­ing in tox­ic sub­stances, and lick­ing their paws and fur that have come into con­tact with chem­i­cals. If the pack­ag­ing is labelled “organ­ic” or “eco-friend­ly,” this does not mean that the prod­uct is com­plete­ly safe. Biopes­ti­cides are sim­ply less tox­ic than con­ven­tion­al pes­ti­cides.

Choose an organ­ic fer­til­iz­er

The best choice is a slow-release organ­ic fer­til­iz­er in gran­u­lar form. These pro­vide a steady sup­ply of nutri­ents to plants for 3 to 4 months. The gran­ules should not be thrown on the sur­face of the soil, but mixed into the soil. Lawn fer­til­iz­er should be spread just before or dur­ing rainy days so that the fer­til­iz­er dis­solves more quick­ly. Liq­uid fer­til­iz­ers are a good choice for pot­ted plants, but cat own­ers should remem­ber to emp­ty the saucers to pre­vent cats from drink­ing the fer­til­ized water.

The best fer­tilz­ers

A good alter­na­tive or sup­ple­ment to com­mer­cial organ­ic fer­til­iz­ers is lava (vol­canic ash), which is a very pow­er­ful min­er­al fer­til­iz­er. Anoth­er safe option is insect manure (insect frass), which also makes crops less attrac­tive to dis­eases and pests. And of course, don’t for­get sea­weed. Sea­weed (in gran­ule, pow­der, or liq­uid form) con­tains many essen­tial nutri­ents as well as nat­ur­al growth hor­mones.

Gar­lic against pests and dis­eases

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, there are very few prod­ucts on the mar­ket that con­tain nat­ur­al ingre­di­ents (herbs) and are con­sid­ered safe for plants, ani­mals, peo­ple, and the envi­ron­ment as a whole. All these prod­ucts con­tain gar­lic and smell of gar­lic. Gar­lic itself is tox­ic to cats, but it is always used in very low con­cen­tra­tions and is there­fore not con­sid­ered harm­ful. The smell does not seem to both­er cats. What’s more, the smell will dis­ap­pear with­in a cou­ple of days. An exam­ple of a gar­lic-based insec­ti­cide is Organ­i­fer.

Ants

Ants do not harm plants them­selves, but they breed aphids (small pests of var­i­ous col­ors) that cause dam­age to plants.

Anti-ant pow­ders that are sup­posed to be sprin­kled around the house, on side­walks, and on patios are tox­ic to cats. The safest option for cat own­ers are ant baits (small plas­tic box­es with holes in them that con­tain poi­son).

How­ev­er, if there are too many ants, only a “chem­i­cal” anti-ant spray can help. It is impor­tant to choose a spray with a long exten­sion tube that allows access to the small holes where ants can hide. It is best to find the ant nest and poi­son it in the evening, after lock­ing the cats inside the house.

Slugs and snails

These unpleas­ant-look­ing crea­tures not only eat the berries and leaves of plants, they also car­ry and spread plant dis­eases. Com­mer­cial­ly avail­able slug reme­dies, such as gran­ules and pel­lets, are tox­ic to cats. For­tu­nate­ly, phys­i­cal bar­ri­ers such as cop­per tapes can help reduce the num­ber of slugs. Gar­lic is also an effec­tive slug deter­rent. It is impor­tant to under­stand that slugs pre­fer moist envi­ron­ments. There­fore, it is not rec­om­mend­ed to use mulch around plants, as it attracts too much mois­ture.