Dog food from the stars

I found the last of the chickweed hiding in the shade in the vegie patch today, a sign summer has arrived. During the cooler months it acts as a lush green ground cover over much of the garden.

Chickweed, named stellaria media for its small white flowers, is one of my favourite wild herbs. Rich in vitamin C, it is a useful winter green in salads and as a cooked vegetable if you can harvest enough of it.

Medicinally, chickweed is one of the best herbs for inflammation and itching and useful in the treatment of eczema and psoriasis, bites and stings.  Chickweed dries well so you can store enough to last the warmer months. Harvest before the flowers open and chop into 1-2 cm lengths before spreading on a rack.

My chickens love its soft juicy leaves and I encourage it to grow along the fence line where they can graze on it through the wire. My biggest animal success with chickweed has been with the dogs. I rescued Louis, my long haired dachshund six months ago. He was underweight, nervous and had scaly, itchy skin and scratched and lost hair continually.

I have fed my dogs a 50% meat/50% raw vegetable diet for years and to this I now added two big handfuls of fresh chickweed, 5 tablespoons of ground linseed for each kilo of lean meat and for Louis 2 fish oil capsules. I also make a strong brew of chickweed vinegar which I add one tablespoon of to the final rinse when he gets bathed. His coat is glossy and the hair loss is much reduced. He still scratches but much of that is due to the seeds and prickles he picks up while being the mighty hunter he thinks he is!

Never have the dogs had vet visits for anal gland problems. Toto lived to the ripe old age of 20, despite losing all his teeth when he was 11. Lady, the other dach, is now 17 and doing well on the diet too.

Dog Dinners

1 kg lean meat (I mostly use kangaroo)

800g carrots

2 stalks celery, with leaves

1 stalk broccoli (eat the florets yourself)

½ beetroot

Handful of fresh parsley

5 Tbsp ground Linseed (flax)

Grate all vegetables in a food processor and mix in linseed and meat.

Store in meal size containers and freeze.

Add fish oil capsules daily as needed.

I also feed the dogs chicken necks and the occasional raw bone and avoid processed food as much as possible.

Cooking with Herbs e-book

We have again been cooking, feeding people and madly photographing to bring our latest book to the light --- we are pleased to tell you a bit about it and share one of the recipes with you (in the sidebar).

Making your food a herbal event doesn't take any more preparation time than to create an ordinary meal and changes 'dull' to 'delicious'. Herb leaves, seeds and flowers can be used in salads, seasonings, cakes, desserts and main meals, and by adding herbs to these foods we can help to ensure that our meals are attractive, tasty and digestible. Herbs add distinction and more: oregano and thyme are also digestives, peppermint and spearmint help to dispel wind, the seeds and feathery fronds of fennel help to digest fat. By adding herbs to your cooking you are using them in a preventive way. For instance, caraway added to cabbage, or coriander to beans during cooking helps to prevent flatulence, as well as giving the dish a delicious flavour. This seems to make more sense than drinking a cup of caraway tea after the meal to cure the discomfort. They can also add vitamins and minerals to the diet. In addition to recipes for meals there are sections for food for pets and a section on making herbal wines and liqueurs and this section even includes an aphrodisiac liqueur!

Tips on the medicinal properties of herbs are scattered throughout the book. here is a typical entry: TIP Rosemary can soothe a sore and upset digestive system where there is flatulence and liver inadequacy. It stimulates the production of bile and improves poor liver function. Rosemary contains about 14 mg of easily absorbed calcium (known to calm the nerves) in each teaspoon of chopped leaf so it acts a tonic and restorative to the nervous system. The book may be purchased from our website or from my Etsy shop