160 Snails

This dog that doesn't want to eat her food is driving me up the wall! :P She's a happy, healthy and playful 8 month old pup, but even though she's getting a super meal with specially cooked chicken mince and very nice looking Woolworths pets mince (plus rice, lentils, little veg etc) twice a day, she still doesn't really want to eat it!?? Not even if I put milk on top?! I really have no more ideas regarding her food preferences. And sometimes she'll eat it later in the day, so it's not something she deems inedible... ??? I weighed her at the vet's the other day and she's already 27 kg, now probably even more. I thought the breed (Irish Red setter) only weighs in at about 28 kg as an adult bitch? But clearly I must be wrong... this means that I have actually been feeding her slightly too little. She often doesn't eat all her food though, so feeding more wouldn't have done any better. The amount of Royal Canin pellets she should get is calculated according to her expected adult weight... the breeders haven't got back to me about how much her mom weighs, so I can get a better estimate. I had one last plan in mind for puppy stew, which I cooked last night, and if that doesn't work she's just gonna get straight pellets every day.

This morning while doing my round in the garden I came across the aftermath of Tuesday night's massacre. I wanted to serve the freshest peas for dinner that night and so, headed out with my raincoat and torch in hand to discover a gazillion snails all over our wonderlawn, then all over the cabbage, the stairs, the walls - basically everywhere! The snails were out having a feast on all my hard work and so I decided to squash all of them. I lost count at around 160 snails and I am quite sure that there will still be more of them. With so many snails in our garden I am VERY surprised that there's anything edible left in our garden!! Clearly the other tricks/gimmicks (beer traps, copper steel-wool, egg shells... etc.) don't quite work. Yesterday I saw the most cutetest little chicks ever! I so almost bought them, I'm sure they'll be very entertained by the fine dining on my snails;) I had specially gone out to buy Organic snail bait yesterday but now I might not need it ;) I think I'll put the bait around my next lettuce and cabbage beds, those seem to be the biggest target for our slimy friends. But WOW! I was really dumbfounded by the amount of snails out in the drizzle! Definitely the easiest way to get rid of those buggers.

Out of control?

Runner bean

In the 2 weeks since I last had a good walk about the garden and especially after the garden services have skipped a week of weeding everything feels SO out of control!! I have drastically underestimated the space needed by tomatoes, the gourds have started growing into everything and down the gabion walls and the lettuces are in desperate need of contributing to the compost heap. One thing I also know is that I won't ever plant plectranthus (the green-grey groundcover variety) in a garden ever again! Unless there's a large infertile slope or rockery I wish to cover up quickly. They are almost an invader!! I have trimmed them back 3 times already in the past 2 months! I don't even bother with secateurs I just rip big chunks of them out with a twist of the hand and chuck them in a far-away corner... the problem is they just don't die, they start growing roots and settle themselves in the new spot. I think I will slowly but surely remove all of them from the back garden completely, they're quite a pest with all the water we're giving the young, more tender plants. I think I will remove all the overgrown ones and throw them on the side of our garden where there's no sprinklers, hopefully they will die then and provide a bit of mulch?

I will also have to seriously work through the veggie patch! The rocket's taking over, the celery is looking dire and I think everything could do with a good trim or clearing out! I think I'll start up some new seeds and then plant them out when there's space after the cleanup. I must admit: this gardening project is much harden than I imagined it would be! It requires more than just a few hours a week and I haven't even given it that much attention since Jenni arrived. So I guess it's not that difficult, but you can't leave it unsupervised for more than a few days!! I will have to rescue the tomatoes and maybe trim them back a little because my whole little "support" I built has tumbled over under their weight... monster tomatoes!

 Scooby snack... ?

Puppy Love

Besides sharing some of the ins and outs of my life in general one of the main reasons for my blog is to share one of my dreams-come-true. This weekend (6 Feb 2011) we fetched our very own puppy (and very 1st as a couple). Her name is Genevieve (aka Jenni Button or "Je ne sais quoi"), also fondly known as The Poopy :)

Genevieve is a flashy Irish Red Setter, her pedigreed name is Oakdale's Bed o' Roses (Daddy: Apollo of the Chicken Farm, Mommy: Oakdale's Safari Sunset). Such a sweet name, and especially appropriate since our new garden has a couple of wonderful new roses (my very first ever no wait, I lie, I did have a red miniature rose once and it died... hmmmm???).

Anyway, I'm sure a few pictures will be worth more than their 1000 words.

Ain't I just gorgeous...

Some biltong with that pleez.

More gorgeousness.