[Aunt Sally]

Yes, some people do use "tongue in cheek" humour to poke fun at others 

Now was that serious, or tongue in cheek ?

[zazen999]

Its that time of year again when everyone goes daft and strips their plots bare, heaping their spent green vegetation into a heap and setting fire to it with paraffin and fire blocks. Earth which once bore the fruits of the year now stripped bare and exposed to the elements.

Then the digging frenzy begins as bare earth is chopped up and thrown around, killing hundreds of earthworms and bringing weed seeds into the light to compete with next year's veggies. Water retained in the settled soil layers is thrown into the air to evaporate away.

And then the conveyor belt of heaving and complaining gardeners begins, wheeling endless barrows of animal muck from farm and stable and shop and field. Hope its not ammo contaminated - no way to know until next year.  Radox make another killing as countless allotmenteers rest their aching sprained backs in the copious depths of hot mineral waters.

As I stand at my plot, lush with green manures which I sprinkled only last week from a packet in my pocket and I look forward to another year of succulent, rich veggies from my undisturbed soil, tilled and tunnelled by my immense armies of undisturbed earthworms and minibeasts - I can't help feeling (in a nice way) - You're all mad you are! 

When you say everyone.......I'm waiting patiently for my beds to come free so that the winter veg can go in....I don't have empty beds at any time of year. What's that all about? Why waste beds on green manures when you can have leeks, garlic, beetroot, onions, PSB, swede, caulis, calabrese, broadies, lettuce.........?

[JayG]

I am very far from being a vegan but have to admit (grudgingly) that Zippys post made a lot of sense , a lot of the gardening we do is just for the sake of the doing.

Not if you are a) interested in the science of gardening and b) lazy like what I am! 

Growing good crops is both rewarding and fun; unnecessary labour (especially digging) is not!

[peterjf]

each to their own , if you stood 20 gardeners together there would be 20 different ways of growing , just do things your way and live and let live ,

 

[viettaclark]

That was a lovely post Zippy! It made me laugh! Look at the interesting opinions that have emerged for us to read and cogitate on.
 I was given some comfrey plants but I've planted them near the bins so my beds are free for veg. Next year I shall be using them for green manure, don't worry! However, like Grannie, my bins are swollen with chicken poo which will need a theraputic dig in!

[Aunt Sally]

each to their own , if you stood 20 gardeners together there would be 20 different ways of growing , just do things your way and live and let live ,

 

Only twenty ways ?

[Pompey Spud]

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

 :happy:

[DD.]

Apologies if I was a bit hasty in my post.

Rule 2: Never post at that time of morning after driving 300 miles.

[SG6]

Zippy, a nice little ditty.
Quite accurate and amusing.
I try not to chop the worms up, I even try to "replant" any that are left on the surface.

Does Vegan gardening incorporate organic?

[beansticks]

I'm with Zippy,and i am in the process of constructing raised beds for the very reasons he points out.Next year i will try green manures.

[Zippy]

DD and anyone else who may have been offended by my early morning ramblings, please accept my sincere apologies. It was not my intention to poke fun or criticise other allotmenteer’s ways of doing things, but just a reflection on this time of year and what makes us so very different and then again, so very similar in our hopes for better quality and more abundant harvests. Some dig and others strew, but what makes us different brings us together – we all do it “our way”.

Vietta clark

Look at the interesting opinions that have emerged for us to read and cogitate on.

They certainly are interesting and some have made me think about my own approach to allotmenteering; particularly Zazen999, who says:

Zazen999

I don't have empty beds at any time of year. What's that all about? Why waste beds on green manures when you can have leeks, garlic, beetroot, onions, PSB, swede, caulis, calabrese, broadies, lettuce.........?

It’s a good point. I also have runner beans, swedes, turnips, beetroot, parsnips, leeks, lettuce, rocket and many others, including a late courgette, which may actually bear fruit before the first frost, so I don’t have a lot of ground I could dig over even if I wanted to. Empty beds are sown with green manure to bring up the fertility of the soil rather than just to keep it occupied, so not a waste of a bed as the brassicae that follow will benefit from the added nitrogen and minerals brought up from deeper down.

Autumn sowings of Broad Beans will give an early harvest while building nitrogen in the beds for later crops. However if we keep crops coming in this way, we must remember to sow feeder crops such as legumes and green manures and to strew compost on our beds to prevent starving the soil over time.


Grannie Annie

… what do I do with the piles of chicken poops I get every time I clean out my coops and my overf ull compost heap! Still takes a lot of digging.

Although I garden veganically where manures from the meat market and horse industries are concerned, I will use the manures from our rabbit at home and chicken manure from neighbouring gardeners as in the main, these animals are treated well. These are welcome additions to my compost heap as high nitrogen and compost activators.

Each year, I strew the entire contents of the compost bin on the beds that will accommodate my potatoes and squashes. In this way on a four-year rotation, I feed each bed heavily every four years and along with green manuring when possible, I find this maintains and increases the heart of the soil without using large amounts of animal manure. In my opinion there is nothing in animal manure which cannot be found in a wide diversity of vegetation, from kitchen scraps to lawn mowings, leaves, straw and many others. Animal manures are usually just vegetation which has passed through the guts of a herbivore. Composting takes longer but comes out just as well; just my opinion.

Crh75

.. I thought green manures were best for lighter sandy soil, do people agree with that?

To break up clay soils I have used buckwheat and also alfalfa, though you do need to keep the crop going for longer for the roots to grow deep and thick enough to break up clay soil. My approach would be to dig (yes dig) deeply initially to break up any soil pan and then use a lasagne approach, building the organic layers one autumn ready to plant into the next spring. This approach would have a weed free, fertile bed very quickly without having to dig again.

SG6

Does Vegan gardening incorporate organic?

There are probably as many different views on veganic gardening as there are vegan gardeners. Some dye-hards would say I am not a veganic gardener because I will use rabbit and poultry droppings. My view is the animals I collect from are well treated and not butchered so I feel that rests well with me.

I think all veganic gardeners will be organic in their approach however. I would like to be proved wrong if I am wrong though!

Thank you for a lively debate and once again – apologies if I have offended anyone. Zippy by name, sometimes Zippy by nature.

DD – I promise in future not to post so early in the morning but to let my ideas season a bit before posting!

[Elcie]

What happens to the earthworms when you dig in the green manure?  Do they not get murdered then too, or is it different in Spring? 

[DD.]

Good point - well made!

[RichardA]

Nothing new under the sun - fifty years ago I helped seperately my dad and my two grandads on very different plots. One grandad had a small town garden but used a lot of mustard as green manure. My dad had an allotment actually inside a village farm yard so we shovelled and we barrowed and we dug. He had green fingers if anyone had - even the bits of stick out of the hedgerows he marked the seed rows with grew.
My other grandad could only dig slowly but he lived next to a slaughterhouse in a village and actually used buckets of blood as fertiliszer - not sure how effective that was.
My point -- they all did what they could for no other reason than to feed their families, no books to read, no magazines or TV programmes and no forums to share opinions through  and they never agreed either.
R

[Aunt Sally]

I dig up worms to feed to my chickens... they love them