Barking mad

If you’re a dog or cat lover who’s been feeding your pets with pellets and canned food since forever, you are probably tearing your hair out wondering ‘where to now?’ because of the recent scary recall of contaminated pet food in the US and in South Africa. Well, Steve Brown and Beth Taylor have been talking about healthy dog food for years and their book See Spot Live Longer has some wonderful recipes that will make your mouth water, never mind Spot!

The scare of contaminated (with an industrial chemical) pet food is far from over and it’s now reported to have affected nearly 39000 pets in America, so best we start thinking long term nutrition for our pets. The information was released by the Banfied Pet Hospital, from their records of more than 615 veterinary hospitals.

What did our grand parents feed to their dogs? After all, ‘scientific’ pet foods were unavailable then, but dogs seemed to manage pretty well as man’s best friend, and hunting dogs in particular had to be on top form to be able to find whatever they were sniffing out. Most of their food came in table scraps, with quite a lot of raw meaty bones, if my memory serves me, and that sounds a far cry from some of the stuff we hear goes into ‘scientific’ pet foods!

Do your pets a favour and prepare their food yourself – they’ll love you for it!

Image source=http://eyeteeth.blogspot.com/2006_03_01_eyeteeth_archive.html

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Birth of an Organic Vegetable Garden

A brand new organic vegetable garden was born recently at Squirrel’s Landing. There’ll be frequent postings to keep you up to date on how it progresses, so make sure you visit us again soon. This is how the early preparation went in order to put minerals back in the sand and soil:

Our topsoil was thick with invasive grass roots, making it impossible to dig over, and we had to bring in a Bobcat to chop off the matted and dead topsoil which has been hijacked by invading alien grass for three generations

• Then we cleared out bits of stone and some deep sunken roots which would have sent up more grass shoots within days


• A thin layer of loose soil was exposed, under which hardened clay has made it impossible to fork over. We tried sinking a stake in to hold up a fence but it was useless, the prongs of the fork just bent! This was when we realized just how much work is ahead of us.


• We have to manufacture top soil from scratch in order to make it arable!


• A layer of well rotted manure went down first followed by some dried grass clippings taken from the plot next door where a team of workmen recently spent the morning mowing. It will help make a base for our new topsoil and the remains have been set aside to feed our new compost heap


• After that a layer of good topsoil was salvaged from the boundary which is where a natural stream runs, and the soil looks quite healthy


• Then another spreading of manure and some of the so-called 'compost' from the local nursery came next, and a hefty dose of organic chicken manure in pellet form to add concentrated nitrogen into the mix


• Lots of watering followed, after which there was much digging and forking over and leveling of the whole area


• This new topsoil will lie quietly for two weeks, with a little tilling and lots of watering in between, when we will be ready to set the paths and plant some seeds

We’d love to hear from you so visit us soon for further news of our brand new organic garden, and we’d love to hear from you about your ideas on growing organic vegetables.

Don't forget my Organic gardening DOs & DON'Ts

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