Tag: DIY (Page 11 of 14)

Spring Soil Preparation for the Organic Vegetable Garden

March 27, 2010 / Lindsey / 8 Comments

Amending the garden soil

Wanna know the best piece of garden advice I’ve ever gotten? “Feed the soil, not the plants.” Yeah! It took me a while to actually appreciate the truth in that statement, but through first-hand experience, I now know that if you concentrate on building rich & delicious soil, you will most certainly get rewarded with much better vegetable harvests — and I do mean MUCH better!!

I amend my soil once a year, in the spring, and like to use 3 different amendments:

– Leaves that have been mulching the garden since autumn

– 1/2″ layer (or more) of composted cow (or other) manure or finished compost

– Dry, organic fertilizer mix (recipes below)

Let me explain…

– Leaves:

As I mentioned last fall, I don’t like to dig or amend my soil in the fall…but rather wait until the spring time. So over the past few weeks, I’ve been gradually pulling away the thick layer of leaves that I had put on the garden in October. The reason I say “gradually” is because once you pull away the dry top layer, there’s a moist layer underneath. You could of course just dig these moist leaves in right away, but my soil was still quite wet, and I wanted it to dry out a bit before digging (digging wet soil is not good for the garden since it destroys the structure of the soil, causing it to compact and dry into brick-like clods). Also, you’ll notice that when you expose the wet leaves, there will probably be lots of worms in that layer. I like to give the worms a chance to burrow back into the soil before I pull off that layer of wet leaves…otherwise you’d be pulling off precious worms that you want to keep in your garden.

Anyway, I dig a thin layer of leaves into the soil, and will use the rest to mulch around my plants as they get bigger.

– Manure or Compost:

If you use manure, it should be composted, not fresh (so as not to burn your plants with nitrogen, and also to prevent the spread of pathogens). I buy mine from the garden center. Important side note: there’s a growing problem with herbicide-contaminated compost (both animal- and plant-based) being sold; this is bad news for gardeners since it has a very negative impact on the growth of crops, and it persists in the soil for years. Read the full story here, and an update here. So in light of all that, if you make your own compost, definitely use it!

– Organic Fertilizer Mix:

First, the recipes!

Here are a couple of dry, organic fertilizer recipes from my favorite vegetable gardening book, Rodale’s Garden Answers – Vegetables, Fruits, and Herbs:

For every 100 square feet of garden space, mix together:

6 lbs alfalfa meal

3 lbs bone meal

4 lbs greensand

1 lb kelp meal

OR, Mix and Match (choose ONE from each category):

Nitrogen (N):

2 parts blood meal – OR – 3 parts fish meal

Phosphorus (P):

3 parts bone meal – OR – 6 parts rock phosphate or colloidal phosphate

Potassium (K):

1 part kelp meal – OR – 6 parts greensand

Unfortunately, the book doesn’t specify how many quarts or pounds to apply for the Mix-n-Match recipe, but I’d guess it would be about 4-6 quarts per 100 sq ft. Or, based on the first recipe, you could figure that 1 part probably equals 1 pound, and measure it out that way.

I used the first Rodale recipe last year with good success; this year, I’m trying the recipe outlined in this Mother Earth News article called “A Better Way to Fertilize Your Garden.” This is probably the best, most helpful organic fertilizer article I’ve seen. It’s worth reading!

As for sourcing ingredients, I was sorely disappointed in the organic fertilizer selection at my local garden centers (do that many people still use all those chemicals?! :-(). I went to four different places before I got what I wanted, and no doubt paid a premium. Next time I’ll go ahead and buy online. Even though the shipping rate might be high because of the weight of the ingredients, it will probably be worth it. Peaceful Valley Farm Supply is a good source, but I’d also do a google search for organic garden suppliers to see who else is out there.

Anyway, in that article, it’s suggested that you initially use 4-6 quarts of fertilizer per 100 square feet (depending on what you’re growing…and possibly adding more throughout the season; more details in the article). I mixed up 7 quarts of fertilizer. The recipe is measured in ratios (“parts”) instead of in cups or pounds, which is annoying if you’re trying to end up with a certain number of quarts. So I did some math to come up with the number of CUPS needed of each ingredient, so that the end result was 7 quarts of fertilizer mix. Measure your ingredients on the generous side, and mix thoroughly before applying to the garden.

7 quarts (28 cups) of fertilizer:

16 cups (4 quarts) alfalfa meal (which is roughly 2.5 – 3 lbs)

2 cups (1 pint) agricultural lime

2 cups (1 pint) dolomite lime

4 cups (1 quart) bone meal

4 cups (1 quart) kelp meal

Ingredients for making organic fertilizer

I dig all 3 amendments into my garden soil in the spring, to a depth of about 4 inches. Once the veggies really get going, I like to supplement my blooming/fruiting veggies with some liquid Neptune’s Harvest Fish/Seaweed emulsion (NPK: 2-3-1), and my leafy greens with Alaska brand Fish Emulsion — though you could certainly use the Fish/Seaweed on all of it. I just happen to have a gallon of the Alaska fish emulsion, so I feed it to the greens since it’s NPK nutrient profile is 5-1-1 (lots of nitrogen!). Instead of the fish emulsion, you could also just dig more dry fertilizer into the soil at regular intervals, as detailed in the fertilizer article, which was linked above.

I hope this was at least kind of helpful…fertilizing the veggie garden had always been a big mystery for me, and within the past couple years, I feel like I’m finally finding my rhythm with it.

Do you have any special organic fertilizer tricks or advice to share??

Planning Your Vegetable Garden

March 19, 2010 / Lindsey / 1 Comment

It’s that time of year! Spring garden planning and planting time. Usually I get around to planning & planting sooner, but this year it’s been cold right up till now, and plus my surgery has delayed things a bit. But happily, I got the entire garden tilled, amended, fertilized, and planted on Tuesday! All with crutches and a bum foot! It was exhausting, but fun to work in the yard again…and very satisfying when I got it all done.

Today I’m going to give you a little tutorial on how to plan your vegetable garden. Over the years I’ve developed a planning method that works well for me. Admittedly, I don’t really like garden planning very much. I do love looking through all my seed packets and deciding what to grow for the year, but the process of actually planning what to put where is a task that takes literally hours of mental work (for me at least). It’s a lot of thinking, decision-making, & considering all different garden plan configurations in my head before I even put pencil to paper.

That said, though, there comes a feeling of satisfaction and excitement when I’ve completed the plan and am thoroughly happy with it. Each year’s plan is different, depending on what I want to grow and also considering what grew there last year.

I have three 4’x8′ raised beds, a 2’x8′ raised “lasagna” bed (a story for another day!), another 4’x8′ raised bed against the south side of the house, plus various pots here and there for extra tomato growing space.

Here’s my basic planning process:

1. Decide what you want to grow. Look through seed catalogs or go to a garden center to get seeds, or if you’re like me and already have wayyy too many seeds to choose from, go through all your seed packets and set aside what you think you want to grow. (I like to start all my veggies from seed, but you could just as easily decide what you want to grow, and then buy plants from the nursery.)

Once you’ve narrowed down which veggies you want to grow, write them all down on a piece of paper.

2. Determine which vegetables will be in the Spring plan, the Summer plan, or both plans. If you’re planning both a spring and summer garden (which I do), you’ll have 3 categories of vegetables:

– Early-spring-planted veggies that you’ll harvest before summer (like spinach, peas, lettuce, etc.)

– Early-spring-planted veggies that you’ll leave in the garden through the summer — the “spring carry-over veggies” (like cabbage, onions, parsley, potatoes, cilantro, dill, chard, carrots, etc.)

– Summer-planted veggies (like tomatoes, squash, peppers, cucumbers, etc.)

As you can see in the photo below, I mark my piece of paper with “Sp” (for “spring”) to the right of the spring-planted veggies, and “M” (for “main” summer) to the left of the summer-planted veggies. Vegetables with both “Sp” and “M” will be in both garden plans. As I place each vegetable into the plan, I put a check mark next to it.

3. Draw two outlines of your garden plots on paper — one for spring, one for summer. For my plans, I have one piece of thick paper; on one side I have Spring, on the other side I have Summer. Be sure to also note the year somewhere on your garden plan. On both plans, draw in any perennial vegetables that have overwintered.

Graph paper isn’t necessary, unless you like to use it. I draw my plans free-hand, and just eye the scale of things. The first year that I did a formal plan, I got mathematical about it and used graph paper, with “one square = 6 inches” and all that, but in the end, I found it unnecessary to be so precise, and I haven’t used graph paper since.

Also, always work in pencil! 🙂

Draw your garden plots, and draw in any overwintering perennial vegetables.

4. Plan your summer garden first. I find it easier to plan my summer garden first, and then my spring garden. To plan my summer garden, I decide on the location of both the spring-planted carry-over vegetables as well as the summer-planted vegetables.

I begin with deciding where I’ll put my tomatoes…though in doing this, you’ll be thinking about all your vegetables — not just the tomatoes. But I like to put the tomatoes down on paper first, as this makes it easier to place other things.

I also place the tallest vegetables (tomatoes, plus anything grown on a trellis) at the north end of each of the raised beds, so that they don’t block the sun from reaching shorter veggies.

I also consider the locations of last year’s vegetables, and try not to plant the same thing in the same place the next year. It doesn’t always work out that way (for instance, this year’s cabbage will be partially in the same spot as last year), but to me, that’s okay.

I like to plan the summer garden first.

5. Plan your spring garden based on the summer garden. Now, on your spring garden plan, copy down the spring carry-over veggies that you placed in your summer plan. Then, fill in the empty spaces with all of your spring veggies that will be harvested before summer, like the lettuce, radishes, spinach, peas, etc.

I plan the spring garden based upon which veggies will be carrying over to summer.

6. Check your veggie list to be sure you’ve placed everything, and then you’re done! Now it’s time to plant your spring garden!

Click here to read about how I amend my soil each year to get ready for spring planting.

And as a side note…if you start your own seedlings inside (rather than buying from a nursery), that adds another step to the spring preparation process, but it’s not bad. I definitely prefer to grow my own seedlings! Mostly I start my summer stuff inside, like tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, and peppers, but this year I also started my cabbage inside and it’s germinating better than when I plant it directly into the garden. But other than cabbage, I plant all my spring stuff directly into the garden, without starting it inside. Anyway, I’ll share more about all that soon, too.

*UPDATE 3/5/11: The past couple years I’ve just planted cucumbers and squash seeds directly into the garden rather than starting them inside. I’m much happier with this method since it’s SO much easier and the difference in fruiting times is not appreciable enough to be worth the bother of starting them inside. So I’ll stick to starting tomatoes, peppers, and cabbage inside. I might also start my celery inside, too, since it never quite took hold when I direct-seeded last year.

Homemade Pumpkin Pie Fruit Leather

March 14, 2010 / Lindsey / 7 Comments

I think it’s time for another recipe! It’s been a while since I’ve posted one. I’m still off work for another few days as I continue to recover from my foot surgery, so I’ve got extra time at home which is wonderful! I can’t be in the kitchen all day since I need to continue to rest a lot and elevate my foot, but I could never completely stay away from my kitchen 🙂 — crutches or not — so I’ve been experimenting here and there with some simple recipes.

Today’s recipe for homemade fruit leather is definitely simple! I used to eat fruit leather all the time when I was younger, but I’d pretty much forgotten about it, even though it’s a yummy & very portable snack. Recently I came across the idea of homemade fruit leather, and decided to experiment using a can of pumpkin that’s been sitting in the back of the pantry for over a year (or maybe two…). Voila! Pumpkin Pie Fruit Leather. It’s so good that I had to restrain myself from eating the whole entire tray, and it’s incredibly easy to make!

If you don’t have, or don’t want to use, canned pumpkin, just substitute cooked pumpkin (or winter squash) puree.

Also…if you don’t have pumpkin, you could use this basic method to make fruit leather from cooked/pureed apples, pureed peaches (no need to cook them first), plums, berries, bananas, or a combination of fruits — and with these fruits, there’s no need to add any spices unless you want to! If I have an abundance of tomatoes this year, I think I’ll even try it with tomatoes. Anyway, here’s the recipe:

Pumpkin Pie Fruit Leather

2 cups (or one 15-oz can) cooked pumpkin or winter squash puree

1/4 cup honey

1/4 – 1/2 tsp cinnamon (depending on your taste…I used a 1/2 tsp because I like the bold taste of spices)

1/4 – 1/2 tsp ginger powder, optional

1/4 tsp powdered cloves

1/8 tsp nutmeg

Preheat oven to 200* F. (If you have a dehydrator, you can use it for this recipe. Dehydrate at 140*.) Mix all ingredients well. Generously oil a cookie sheet (really slather the oil on…it’ll make it much easier to peel off the leather!), or use parchment paper. Using a spatula, spread your mixture on the cookie sheet, taking the extra time to spread as thinly and evenly as possible; this took me a few minutes to get it just right. Spreading it as evenly as possible is important because otherwise some parts will be over-done and other parts will be under-done (which will probably happen to some extent anyway, but at least you’ll be minimizing it).

Spread the mixture as evenly and thinly as possible on the oiled cookie sheet.

Put your cookie sheet into the oven and let it “dehydrate” in there until the fruit leather is pliable…not wet, but not hard & brittle either. Mine took about 2 1/2 hours to get done; you’ll want to check on yours every now and then. A little bit was over-done and I had to let the cookie sheet cool a little before I could pry it off, and another little patch was under-done, so I just put it back in the oven for a little while. But most of it was easily peeled off the cookie sheet with a flexible metal spatula; this whole process would probably be even easier if you use parchment paper.

The fruit leather is done.

Peel it off the cookie sheet with a flexible metal spatula. If it's not over-done, it should peel right off with no problem. If it's under-done, it will be too wet to peel off...so just pop that part back into the oven for a while.

Store in a glass jar. I stored mine in the fridge, but you can also store it at room temperature.

How To Decaffeinate Your Tea

March 9, 2010 / Lindsey / 7 Comments

I just love tea! Something about having a hot cup of tea in my hands is very comforting. When I lived for a short while in New Zealand, one of my favorite things to do was make myself a cup of tea, and take it outside into the chilly grayness of the late-winter afternoon and with one hand pull up little weeds from the flower beds while sipping steaming tea from the other hand. That’s a fond memory I’ll never forget.

Anyway, over the past few years I’ve become less and less tolerant of caffeinated tea. Caffeine used to do absolutely nothing to me, so I could drink it and not notice anything one way or the other. But gradually it began to affect me in a negative way. I stay away from any caffeinated drinks now because they make me feel jittery and nauseated (too much strong dark chocolate also has the same effect).

But I love black tea with cream…especially Earl Grey. And the kitchen at work is always stocked with tea bags, hot water, and half & half. But the tea bags are fully-caffeinated English Breakfast black tea, Earl Grey, and green tea. What to do? DIY decaffeination! Here’s my method:

1. Put a teabag into your mug. Fill the mug with very hot (or boiling) water. (Fill the mug a quarter full, half full, or totally full…it doesn’t matter.)

2. Let the teabag sit in the water for 30 seconds.

3. Pour out the water (but keep the teabag!)

4. Now you’re ready to brew your actual cup of tea; fill your mug with very hot (or boiling) water, steep your teabag for as long as you prefer, add milk, cream, or sugar if you want, and enjoy!

I’ve been decaffeinating my own tea for a few years now, and this method really works for me. Caffeine is very water soluble and most of it leaches into the water within the first 30-45 seconds of brewing your tea. I’ve read that this method removes about 80% of the caffeine…about the same as the pre-decaffeinated tea that you can buy at the store. (In fact I like how the little “pre-brew” process softens the bitter bite of the tea.)

Now, I’ve read some silly debates about using hot water versus boiling water…and how you “must never” use this method with tea bags — only with loose tea, and so on. In my opinion, it’s baloney. If the water is hot enough to make tea, it’ll work. If you use tea bags, it’ll work. If you use loose tea, it’ll work.

I use this method daily, though I do get some strange looks in the office kitchen from people who wonder why I’m standing idly at the counter, staring into space with a half-full mug of tea in my hands!

In any case, it’s a trick that definitely comes in handy!

*****

How to Make Your Own Cat Food

February 4, 2010 / Lindsey / 42 Comments

Ingredients for raw cat food, ready to be mixed.

Several months ago, as I dug deeper into researching nutrition and nourishing foods for myself and my family, I started getting suspicious about the bagged cat food we were feeding the family cat. Feeding her dried kibbles day after day seemed similar to feeding someone nothing but breakfast cereal (high-heat processed “meal-in-a-bag”), and I wondered how much nourishment our precious Liz was really getting.

As I began my research, I realized that the pet food industry has done a really great job of tricking us into thinking that all we need to do is buy bags of their “nutritionally complete” food and our pets will be set for life.

But as you might imagine, optimum nutrition cannot be obtained from something in a bag, no matter how good the brand may be. And although there are some good, responsible manufacturers out there, much of the pet food sold is made from very low-quality (read: “scary”) ingredients including animal parts that are left over from the meat packing industry, and sick animals that are not fit for human consumption. It’s garbage, really, that they are hawking to us…under the guise of “complete nutrition” for our precious animal companions. Just do a google search on “what’s really in pet food” to read all the gory details. (Or not! 🙂 )

Pets need real food, just as the rest of the family does. In the wild, the ancestors of today’s cats and dogs ate raw meat, gnawed on bones, and ingested the stomach contents of their prey (which rounded out their diet with small amounts of plant matter). Bagged/canned pet food is a new invention; elderly members of my family remember simply feeding their pets “scraps from whatever the family ate.” Many people out there (including myself) feel that processed pet foods cause disease in our pets, just as processed foods cause disease in humans.

And while some premium brands of pet food might list some wonderful, whole-food ingredients on the label, the fact is that the food has been highly processed with heat, which kills or denatures many of the beneficial components of each ingredient, such as enzymes, amino acids, beneficial bacteria, and heat-sensitive vitamins.

So after realizing that Liz probably wasn’t getting a whole lot of health-promoting benefits from her food, I began experimenting with raw, homemade cat food. Admittedly, I was a little reluctant to do the whole homemade pet food thing, and there were some rough patches of trial and error while I was getting the recipe just right so that Liz would be excited about eating it. Right now, half of her diet is homemade raw food, and half is kibbles-from-a-bag (we usually feed Katz-n-Flocken brand, purchased at the local health food store). Even with just half of her diet being the homemade food, we have seen definite improvements in her energy level (she is 9 years old, but has gotten that kitten energy and playfulness back), and her coat is also more lustrous. Now that I’ve finally gotten her “custom recipe” ironed out, I would like to ease her into eating a 100% homemade-food diet.

And yep, it’s more work, and if your cat only tolerates straight meat and doesn’t like the addition of grains or eggs (which are much cheaper than meat!), it will probably be a little more expensive than a good quality bagged food. However, I really do believe the benefits are worth it.

Here’s my cost breakdown for Liz’s raw-meat-only diet:

The supplements and vegetables add a small cost, of course, but in terms of the main ingredient (turkey) … 2lbs of turkey (mixed with 10-20% vegetables) makes about 43 rounded tablespoon-sized biscuits. Liz is a 10-lb cat, and if she were eating a 100% home made diet of turkey (and other meats & fish), she would eat about 3.5 – 4 biscuits a day. This means that the 43 biscuits would last about 10-14 days. I stock up when the natural, antibiotic-free turkey is on sale for $3/lb, but normally it is $6/lb. This means that it could cost anywhere between $3 and $6 a week to feed Liz a 100% raw turkey diet. At most, that would be less than a dollar a day! Of course, variation in meats is highly recommended, but this is just to give you an idea. And if your cat likes grains in their food, then you can certainly stretch your meat further and the meals would be less expensive. To me, though, this is actually not expensive — and besides, Liz is SO worth it! 🙂

If you’d like to read further, this is a good article to begin with: Trends in Home-Prepared Diets for Pets.

Of the books I read on this subject, these were my two favorites:

Dr. Pitcairn’s Complete Guide to Natural Health for Dogs & Cats, by Richard Pitcairn, DVM, PhD

Herbs for Pets, by Mary Wulff-Tilford & Gregory Tilford

This is also a very interesting book:

Pottenger’s Cats, by Francis M. Pottenger, M.D. (For a concise synopsis of the book, click here.)

Here are two other books that have information on feeding a homemade diet:

Cat Care, Naturally, by Celeste Yarnall

The New Natural Cat, by Anitra Frazier

Armed with information and ideas from the books mentioned above, I have finally developed a recipe that Liz really likes. Each cat is different and each one will have likes and dislikes. Liz doesn’t like grains or eggs added to her food. Her stomach, like mine, doesn’t do well with overly rich foods. She enjoys beef but barfs it up immediately, so she doesn’t get beef anymore. She tries to like lamb, but just can’t bring herself to eat it, so we pretty much feed her just raw turkey and chicken (frozen for at least 2 weeks to kill any nasties), as well as fresh and canned wild salmon. Of course, a variety of meat and fish is recommended, but if your cat is picky, do the best you can! Luckily if your cat won’t eat a particular meat concoction you’ve developed, you can enjoy it instead! (Thus my recipe for Italian-Style Lamb Meatloaf!)

One trick I’ve learned is that replacing about 1 teaspoon of the fat in the recipe with bacon grease is a great way to make the raw food more appealing, if your cat is having trouble loving it.

Also, if you decide to “go homemade” then that’s wonderful! But if you don’t, that’s okay too. If you decide not to go homemade, one thing you CAN do is give your kitty some healthful table scraps that s/he really enjoys: meat, fish, eggs, cream, cheese, fruits, and vegetables. (Liz loves corn and edamame, and can never have enough cantaloupe!) I think that our modern-day veterinarians have led us astray in telling us not to give table scraps to our animals. I think it’s a wonderful treat for them, and also much more nourishing to their bodies than kibbles or canned food. And it’s what household pets have lived on for hundreds of years!

How To Make Your Own Cat Food, (c) The Herbangardener

Liz

Here’s my recipe:

Lindsey’s Basic Homemade Cat Food Recipe

1 lb ground turkey or chicken or a 15-oz can of salmon with juice. (You can feed the meat either raw or cooked, but raw is definitely the preferred choice. I buy organic or at least humanely-raised, no-antibiotic meat. It costs me about $5 to $6 a pound, but if it’s on sale, I stock up! I also freeze mine for at least 2 weeks to kill any bacteria.)

1 1/2 tsp KAL brand Bone Meal (comes from bones of New Zealand cattle)

1 tsp Healthy Powder *see end of post for Healthy Powder recipe

1 or 2 Tbsp fat (I use olive oil, coconut oil, butter, or a mix. Replacing about 1 teaspoon of fat with bacon grease will often make biscuits more appealing to your kitty!)

300-400 IU vitamin A, crushed to a fine powder

1/3 of the contents of a Taurine capsule (optional if feeding raw meat, but I usually add it anyway)

Contents of 1 vitamin E capsule

10%-20% vegetables (optional). I just eye the amount, compared to the amount of meat that’s in the bowl. For Liz, I use very finely shredded raw zucchini (frozen works too), or steamed & mashed winter squash or carrots, or cooked organic corn (since she loves corn). Vegetables aren’t actually necessary, if the cat won’t tolerate them. Unless your cat loves veggies, you’ll probably have to chop them very finely or puree them in order to sneak them in. Other vegetable ideas are potatoes, cauliflower, broccoli, peas, green beans, etc.

Fish Oil: No matter what kinds of meat I’m using, I also squeeze in a few capsules of good quality fish oil (Carlson’s brand is nice) or add about 1/4 – 1/2 teaspoon of Blue Ice Royal Fermented Cod Liver Oil/Butter Oil blend flavor-free gel (I definitely prefer & recommend Blue Ice brand Fermented Cod Liver Oil/Butter Oil blend. The Weston A. Price Foundation website has good information about that, here.)

I mix all this up (with my hands…it’s easier), and drop by tablespoon-sized scoops onto a cookie tray, and freeze. Once frozen, I transfer the “biscuits” into a freezer bag.

Each day, we take a couple biscuits out of the freezer and put them into a small tupperware container in the fridge. By the next morning, they’ve thawed and are ready to eat. We generally feed one biscuit in the morning, and one later in the day (although if we were feeding her 100% on the home made food, we’d likely feed 3.5 – 4 biscuits a day). At the morning feeding, we then transfer a couple more biscuits from the freezer to the fridge, so they’ll be ready for the next day.

Meat "biscuits" ready to be put into the freezer

My recipe above does not include grains or eggs because Liz doesn’t like those in her food. But your cat might! Below is one of the actual recipes from Dr. Pitcairn’s Complete Guide to Natural Health for Dogs & Cats:

Dr. Pitcairn’s Poultry Delight

1 cup dry millet (3 cups cooked) (cook in chicken broth for more flavor)

2 large eggs

2 lbs (4 cups) ground turkey or chicken (or lean chuck, lean heart, lean hamburger, liver, giblets, fish, or other lean meats)

1 Tbsp Healthy Powder *see below for Healthy Powder recipe

1 Tbsp Animal Essentials Calcium, or a rounded 1 ½ tsp of powdered eggshell, or 2 tsp KAL brand bone meal

4 Tbsp fat: butter, lard, olive oil, virgin coconut oil, or a combo

10,000 IU vitamin A

100-200 IU Vitamin E

1 tsp fresh vegetable with each meal (optional)

500 mg taurine (optional)

Bring 2 cups of water to a boil. Add the millet; cover, simmer 20-30 minutes or until the water is absorbed. You may need to add a little more water during cooking. When millet is soft, stir in the eggs to let them set a bit from the heat. Mix in the remaining ingredients. Yields about 8 cups. Each day, feed Small cats about 2/3 cup…Medium cats, 1 cup..Large cats, 1 2/3 cups.

*Dr. Pitcairn’s Healthy Powder

2 cups nutritional yeast

1 cup lecithin granules

1/4 cup kelp or alfalfa powder

1/4 cup KAL brand bone meal or 5 tsp eggshell powder

1,000 mg ground vitamin C

Mix together and store in the fridge or freezer.

One final word — if your cat doesn’t seem to like the homemade food, don’t despair. In Dr. Pitcairn’s book, there’s a great chapter (“Helping Your Pet Make the Switch”) about introducing homemade food and what to do if your pet turns up its nose!

I do hope you’re inspired, as I have been, to incorporate some nourishing foods into your pet’s diet — or if you already feed home cooked meals, please leave a comment and tell us more about that! I’d love to hear feedback from people who have made the switch!

*****