Vegan organic horticulture is a method of growing plants without the use of chemical fertilizers, sprays etc and without using any animal products (except those obtained from humans). It is a system of caring for the soil in a sustainable way to ensure it retains its fertility for future generations. It is a method of growing plants that works in harmony with nature, encouraging a wide diversity of plant and animal life to share the land with us.

This article is a brief guide to the basic principles of vegan organics. A list of suggested reading is given at the end should you want to find more specific information.

The Basic Principles:

Wherever possible, do not dig the soil.

There are many reasons for this:

There are many creatures and organisms living in the soil, helping to create drainage and build up fertility. Digging the soil will kill many of these creatures and break up the natural drainage they have created.

By digging the soil you will encourage much more rapid breakdown of organic matter. Thus, if you wish to maintain the soil fertility, you will become locked into a vicious circle of having to obtain more organic matter to feed the soil whilst putting in lots of effort through your digging in order to destroy that organic matter. Digging the soil exposes it to erosion from rain and wind. It also increases the leaching of nitrogen and other water-soluble nutrients from the soil.

Digging soil will bring weed seeds to the surface where they will quickly germinate and grow. Thus digging actually increases the need to weed.

Rather than being healthy exercise, digging is actually a great strain in the back and often leads to damage.
So, what are the alternatives?

Mulching

If your soil is fairly weed-free, it is possible to simply apply an annual mulch, preferably in late winter or early spring, of some organic matter such as compost. Apply this about 5cm deep all over the ground. If your soil is lacking in humus then you will find that this dressing of organic matter will rapidly be drawn into the soil in the course of the year.

Apply another mulch each succeeding year, to make a total depth of about 5cm. As the fertility of the soil is built up, you will notice that less mulch material is required because more is left over from the previous dressing. This method of gardening does require large initial inputs of organic matter - see item 2 below for details of obtaining this.

Mulching weed-infested sites.

Most organic gardeners, when confronted by a heavily weed-infested site, will reach immediately for the fork or spade and spend many hours laboriously digging out as many weeds as they can. Not only is this exceedingly hard work, but it is often far less than successful. Many of the weeds, such as couch grass or thistles, will soon regrow with renewed vigor if even small parts of the roots are left in the ground. There will also usually be an explosion of germination from literally millions of seeds that have been given ideal germination conditions. The newly-dug ground will very soon be covered in weeds again.

The alternative, once more, is to mulch. But this time there must be some barrier placed below the mulch to prevent all the weeds from growing through. We have found that cardboard boxes are an ideal barrier to use. They are usually freely available in quantity from local shops etc, will form an excellent barrier for a year or so, in which time most of the persistent weeds will have died, and then will rot down nicely to add their own organic matter to the fertility of the soil.

Other materials that can also be used include newspapers (but try to avoid too many with color printing and do not use color supplements on land where you intend to grow food) and carpets (but only those made of natural materials such as hessian - avoid foam-backed carpets). It is very important to ensure that you apply a sufficient thickness of barrier mulch, otherwise the more vital weeds such as thistles and docks will push their way through it. A carpet that is not too worn is usually sufficient, cardboard boxes folded flat but not opened out are generally enough, and newspapers about 15 sheets thick are generally enough. Make sure that the edges of boxes, paper or whatever overlap by at least 8cm, otherwise the weeds will soon find their way to the surface.

Late winter is the ideal time to mulch weed-infested beds, though it can be done at any time of the year so long as the soil is not dry (as well as helping to retain moisture in the soil, a mulch can also prevent moisture from reaching the soil, so a mulched dry soil will remain dry until there has been sufficient rain to soak the mulch and then penetrate into the soil). It is possible to plant into this mulched bed within three months of mulching. You simply use a trowel to make a hole into the cardboard and then plant into this hole. You may find that some weeds will start to grow out of this planting hole, but these are easily controlled by hand weeding. By using this method, it is actually possible to produce a semi-mature bed from weed-infested