I've read that garlic can cause anemia in dogs and cats. I would also stay away from onion, shallots, and chives if you can. I haven't heard about any toxicity with the other common culinary herbs. You could double-check herb safety by checking out "Dr Kidd's Guide to Herbal Dog Care". (Dr Kidd is a Kansas City area holistic vet who advocates adding herbs to dog's and cat's diets.) You could do an internet search and probably find plenty of info by him as well. If you're still in a reading mood, Juliette de Baircli Levy has been advocating herbs for dogs for a very long time and has a number of books out. Good luck!

Hi, I am new to this particular forum but not to Gardenweb. One thing I noticed was that a lot of you talked about your dogs having hot spots - I wanted to make sure to suggest comfrey salve to you to heal those VERY quickly. I grow my own comfrey and make my own salve in quantity for my use and my 6 dogs, but you can also find it in your local natural foods store more than likely. Make sure if you put it on them you cover it so the dog can't lick it as comfrey can cause liver damage when taken internally. But the stuff is amazing. On the topic of feeding home-cooked, I have had great luck with the following when I have had a furkid with pancreatitis, or a puppy sick from tummy surgery, etc. In a large bowl I mix: 2 cups cooked brown rice 1 large jar baby food in a vegetable/meat combination any leftover plain cooked meat I have, chopped small (or baby food meat sticks if I don't have leftovers) 1 hard boiled egg, chopped 1 banana, mashed into mixture Mix and serve!

Right on Oil Robb, I was baffled as to how a person on this planet could be unaware that food is grown in manure and has been as long as people have been growing food. I thought everyone had driven within a mile of a crop field and realized it smelled like a cow's primary product. Stating that you grow melons in the lot that is coated with manure was pleasant to read because watermelons evolved in Africa to grow in the wake of the animals that leave them. Watermelons evolved to grow in piles of poop after their seeds traveled through the digestive system of elephants... And it's a pretty common adaptation throughout the plant kingdom. The only down sides to dog poop that I have found are that I have to cut the grass more often, and when I gathered some up to put in the worm bin my dog mistook that action for "don't go there" and now spreads it all over. So now I need to put on shoes when I go outside. On the bright side, pooping dog is now a source of entertainment as I hope for her to go close to the fruit trees so I don't have to buy poop to put on them. Buy poop... Imagine that. Next people are going to start insisting that forest fires are bad for the forests when they are really only bad for the morons that put their houses in forests that depend on wildfires to stay healthy.

RHIZO 1 Reasoning, there is the 'posse' which only seems to be a pest aphid, and not the beneficial insects. I didn't state that the person should release preditary insects BEFORE spraying an insecticide, but instead, place preditary insects out a week or more AFTER the spray. Aphids do respond well to pyrethrins, which is quite safe for edible plants, as is neem. The wasps mentioned are usually sent out on a postage stamp sized piece of stiff cardboard that looks like it has gray sand paper on one side. That's the wasp eggs. I have not had much luck with them, or green lacewings either. I do have early pollinators, orchard mason bees (only for very early apple blossoms), and when the cukes start showing up, a whole honey bee hive colony seems to flock to the cuke flowers every year. Had another preditor, the infamous praying mantis. They would sit at the tops of the basil plants where the flowers would emerge and wait for a honey bee to come by. A second later that pantis has his fast meal, and waits for more. I take the mantis off the basil, and the next day its back to its favorte basil spot chomping on another bee. Nope, mo mantis here anymore, even if they eat a lot! Simply hosing down the plants will remove all the aphids but just allow the aphids more clean places to chew more. Your logic is flawed, and organic gardening is something not everyone knows a lot about, unless they have been able to control an insect pests, diseases, and unknown causes to losing plants. Years ago, I tried putting out japanese beetle traps and barely would have a year go bay that the foliage on everything looked like swiss cheese. My poor raspberry leaves were nearly all chewed off as were the horsradish leaves. I tried natural sprays too, with no luck. After a 10 year battle that I was simply losing, I put down milky spore around the outer perimeters of my garden, watered in beneficial nematodes for both grubs and fungus gnats (cost me a FORTUNE!), and tried neraly every kind of pest deterrent there is, including some battery operated LEDs that light up at night and are supposed to attact moths that lay looper eggs. They caught one single beetle on a whole summer, out goes that trap! I also had a lot of striped cucumber beetles and there, I use scent lures and sticky traps nearby the cuke vines. The traps get loaded within a month and always need replecement. Same with coddling moths on my apples, and there I use scent lures and red spheres. I spend more on control of insects and disease than I do on what my produce iw worth, and I would NEVER use garden hose and spray water on my herbs, tomatoes, peppers, cukes, or any other plants. The plant only see rain water on their foliage and my soaker hoses at ground level. I even have a fig tree that does well in its 85lb pot, but is just too heavy to deal with, so in the ground it goes this fall, once the leaves drop off. You seem fixated on the words 'broad spectrum', when in fact an insect pest isn't a single entity, but is part of a BROAD SPECTRUM of insects and many are TRUE pests! A pollinator doesn't have to be a honey bee, there are a many other tiny wasps and bees that love tiny flowers like the ones on dill plants. If I were to spray my fruit trees with something like Imidan, that would kill all bees and most any other beneficials, whereas the beneficials are barely harmed, if at all by diatomatious earth and a pyrethrin. ollinators dont chew on leaves that have insect sprays applied to them.