Kitty Loves Fresh Catnip

The other day when I posted pictures of the plants growing in our garden, I mentioned I had transplanted some catnip. There are a couple of reasons why I chose this particular plant: Studies have shown that catnip naturally repels small rodents and even mosquitoes. We have plenty of chipmunk and squirrel traffic in our backyard, and the mosquitoes can be vicious here in the summer. This way, the catnip and mint scare rodents from digging up my nearby seeds and hopefully mosquitoes will avoid our backdoor, where so many sneak in at night when we take out the trash. There's also the more obvious reason for growing catnip: The fresh stuff gets our cats stoned big time.