Cute dog! Almost the kind of cute that derives from being so scruffy it is cute!
My dogs help out with rodent control. But I must admit they also occasionally have their "issues" as well. Luckily not the urine "issue" but my dog tries to "help" with the gardening. Last week he "helped" by harvesting a small watermelon. Picked it and brought it to me pretty much undamaged! Unfortunately it wasn't ripe yet!
Oh well, even humans occasionally have difficulty telling when a watermelon is ripe.
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Originally Posted by Tracydr
Recommendations for a good, inexpensive organic fertilizer in quantity would be great until I have my horse and chickens where they belong.
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You have a forest. So until you can get your animals incorporated into the system, I recommend using leaf mould. That I am sure you can find free for the taking in quantity to "jump start" the garden. Since the soil was already turned up by the installation of the septic system, I would recommend this:
Get some lime and leaf mould and incorporate it into the sand top 2-6 inches with a tiller. Then plant a good summer cover that winter kills like sudan grass, blended with legume and winter hardy covers like winter wheat or rye, alpine peas etc..... You'll need at minimum 4 species, (more is better) a warm season grass and a warm season forb, and a cool season grass and forb. (or 2 or 3 of each) When the summer covers terminate from frost, the winter hardy covers will come in to take over.
Then as you clear areas of downed, diseased and/or otherwise unwanted trees and brush, chip them and pile them up. Next spring I would recommend something like my "Red Baron project", "Lasagna gardening" and/or "Return to Eden" using the wood chips and any leaves you can shred and compost this fall. That should get you by at least temporarily for minimal cost out of pocket until your other long term measures for soil health can kick in. It won't happen over night, but long term you should be good.
There is a plethora of other ways it can be done and even faster, but they start getting very expensive. This way takes a bit longer, but cost is minimal (sweat equity), and long term is better.