Dog Friendly Garden: Worm Composting
Worm Composting is an important element of a dog friendly garden. It’s easy, eco-friendly and very rewarding! Given the right environment and a little routine attention, a handful of worms will rapidly multiply and digest your kitchen scraps faster than any other composting method available.
You can compost your food scraps with worms and reduce the volume of your household garbage by as much as 25%. Your plants will be eternally grateful for this organic treat. It’s especially a neat, environmentally friendly thing to do as a family. Best of all, young boys think it’s REALLY COOL!
Things I’ve Learned About Worm Composters -
1. Any gardener knows that worms are a sign of nutrient-rich soil. Worms are important members of the gardening team, breaking down organic matter into compost. It only makes sense that a worm composter (or worm composting kit) is a great way to speed up the composting process.
2. Like regular compost bins, worm composters are receptacles for kitchen scraps that will eventually decompose. Worm composting bins are specially designed self-contained systems where worms can eat and live while converting your kitchen scraps (and even recyclable paper) into the best, nutrient rich compost for your flowers, plants and vegetables.
3. Best of all, worm composting is virtually odorless! You don’t even need to banish your worm compost bin to the yard; you can keep it in your basement, your laundry room, even your kitchen!
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Dog Friendly Garden: Vegetables Safe For Dogs
Pooch Enjoying A Carrot Snack
When you’re considering the addition of vegetables to your dog’s diet, it’s important to be aware of ones that are potentially harmful to dogs. Two that should be avoided are garlic and onions since they’re known to cause anemia in dogs if consumed in high enough concentration. Other vegetables that can potentially have adverse effects on dogs include avocados, tomatoes, and wild mushrooms. Also, never feed your dog grapes or raisins because they can cause renal failure.
Never leave your pup unattended in the vegetable garden since the green leaves and stems of many common vegetables can cause a wide range of health problems. Many people with dogs put a chicken wire or other type of fence around their vegetable plot. It keeps the area off limits to curious canines and protects your crop from rabbit damage.
Vegetables Safe For Dogs Include:
* Carrots
* Broccoli
* Celery
* Green Beans
* Spinach
* Sweet Potatoes
To make vegetables more digestive system friendly, cut them into smaller pieces. You can also cook them by steaming in a steamer. Using the steam method will preserve more of the healthy nutrients and phytochemicals than most other cooking methods will. Limit vegetables to no more than a quarter of your dog’s food intake a day and serve them along with a high quality source of protein.
Dog Friendly Plants: Best Choices For Your Yard
Some of the best suited dog-friendly plants for your yard are native species. Natural durability and sturdy growth habits make native plants a perfect fit for backyards shared with our pooches. In spite of bitter cold, searing heat, drought and floods, they bloom year after year. These plants are better able to handle what pets throw at them.
Many stunning plants make their ancestral homes in the U.S. – columbine, phlox, black-eyed Susan, honeysuckle, sunflower and many other colorful, hardy, disease resistant varieties. Another benefit of landscaping with natives is that they tend to attract local wildlife, particularly beneficial insects such as bees and butterflies, which pollinate garden fruit, flowers, and vegetable crops.
The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) publishes a list of plants (at www.aspca.org) that are toxic to dogs and cats. The list includes more than 80 flowers, shrubs and trees, including many common plants such as lilies, tulip and narcissus bulbs, azaleas, rhododendrons and yew.
Chewing on the branches, stems, roots, seedpods, etc., of many of these plants can cause a variety of ugly symptoms, from vomiting and diarrhea to drooling, twitching and even death. But that doesn’t mean you can’t have these plants in your yard. The bottom line is to exercise caution, especially if your dog has indiscriminant eating habits. Much of the risk lies in your dog’s personality and how he uses your outdoor environment.
Pet owners should try to break dogs of their plant-nibbling habits. In addition, unsupervised or bored dogs are more likely to eat troublesome greens – so make sure your dog is exercised daily. Take your canine friend for a long walk and a rousing frisbee or ball toss & fetch session. A happy, tired dog is much less likely to get into mischief or exhibit nuisance behavior such as munching on your posies, digging in your garden, or excessive barking at passersby.
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