vegan gardening issues

[Guest guest]

This is my second summer trying to grow veggies, and here is my concern:

 

Many/most soil, compost mixtures, and plant foods contain animal by-products;

such as bat guano, steer manure, fish emulsion, bone meal..... So, what do vegan

gardeners do? Obviously, cotton seed meal is OK, and I have found a veggie

compost that states " no manure " on the label, though it was very expensive. In

the case of compost, unless you grow your own food, I think that one can

reasonably assume that organic veggies may have been grown with manure or other

animal by products. But, composted manure is not the same as pure manure.

 

I would love input from others on this issue as well as the growing

mediums/products they use.

 

Thanks!

 

Shelley

 

( because tomatoes may not flourish with just my kind, encouraging words alone)

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

Hi Shelley, my husband and I have about a 1/4 acre in veggies. We are very

vegan, but we do use rotted manure on our garden. We have friends who keep

horses and we are doing them a favour to export the mounds and mounds of manure

they produce. I do insist that it is a year old though before we apply it.

 

We also compost all of our kitchen waste, which amounts to several barrels full

every year, then dig that into the garden too. For tomatoes, I find that an

organic fertilizer specially formulated for tomatoes helps a lot. When we relied

on just the manure and compost for tomatoes, we got LOTS of plant but few fruits

(the tomatoes themselves) which rather defeated the whole point. This year, I

have used the tomato fertilizer and getting good results.

 

I also water them with compost " tea " . The compost barrel (which is up high

enough to discourage rodents from getting into it) has tiny holes in it that

permit water and air to pass through the composting material, which helps the

composting process. The liquid that leaches through is the " tea " . I have a

wheel barrel below the composting barrel to catch the " tea " as it drips through.

It's called that because it is about the colour of very strong tea. It is

really nutritious for plants, and the tomatoes especially seem to thrive on it.

 

Near the ocean here, lots of people collect seaweed from the beach after a high

tide and put it on their gardens. We've never done that but lots of people

swear by it!

 

Wishing you all the best, Deborah

 

 

This is my second summer trying to grow veggies, and here is my concern:

 

Many/most soil, compost mixtures, and plant foods contain animal by-products;

such as bat guano, steer manure, fish emulsion, bone meal..... So, what do vegan

gardeners do? Obviously, cotton seed meal is OK, and I have found a veggie

compost that states " no manure " on the label, though it was very expensive. In

the case of compost, unless you grow your own food, I think that one can

reasonably assume that organic veggies may have been grown with manure or other

animal by products. But, composted manure is not the same as pure manure.

 

I would love input from others on this issue as well as the growing

mediums/products they use.

 

Thanks!

 

Shelley

 

( because tomatoes may not flourish with just my kind, encouraging words

alone)

.

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

I make my own compost, and use flax seed meal and seaweed extract to fertilize.

I also plant a 'green manure' cover crop in the fall and turn it over in the

spring to increase organic matter. Are you able to compost at your home?

 

Hope that helps!

 

~ b

 

ShelleyMS <shelleyms wrote:

This is my second summer trying to grow veggies, and here is my

concern:

 

Many/most soil, compost mixtures, and plant foods contain animal by-products;

such as bat guano, steer manure, fish emulsion, bone meal..... So, what do vegan

gardeners do? Obviously, cotton seed meal is OK, and I have found a veggie

compost that states " no manure " on the label, though it was very expensive. In

the case of compost, unless you grow your own food, I think that one can

reasonably assume that organic veggies may have been grown with manure or other

animal by products. But, composted manure is not the same as pure manure.

 

I would love input from others on this issue as well as the growing

mediums/products they use.

 

Thanks!

 

Shelley

 

( because tomatoes may not flourish with just my kind, encouraging words alone)