Veganic (also sometimes known as “organic vegan” or “stock-free”, though stock-free may not be totally 100% vegan), is a gardening technique that uses no herbicides, fungicides, pesticides or other artificially and unnatural chemicals, and does not implement animal products, such as manure, blood meal, bonemeal, fishmeal, feather meal or even the use of animals for plowing or grazing. Veganic growing methods may implement permaculture ideas, but it does not introduce animals into the picture, other than naturally free-roaming animals that may come in contact with the garden or orchard.

Learn more about vegan gardening.

History of Veganic
The veganic gardening method is a distinct system developed by Rosa Dalziell O’Brien, Kenneth Dalziel O’Brien and May E. Bruce, although the term was originally coined by Geoffrey Rudd as a contraction of vegetable organic in order to “denote a clear distinction between conventional chemical based systems and organic ones based on animal manures.” The O’Brien system’s principal argument is that animal manures are harmful to soil health rather than that their use involves exploitation of and cruelty to animals.

The system employs very specific techniques including the addition of straw and other vegetable wastes to the soil in order to maintain soil fertility. Gardeners following the system use soil-covering mulches, and employ non-compacting surface cultivation techniques using any short-handled, wide-bladed, hand hoe. They kneel when surface cultivating, placing a board under their knees to spread out the pressure, and prevent soil compaction. Kenneth Dalziel O’Brien published a description of his system in Veganic Gardening, the Alternative System for Healthier Crops:

“The veganic method of clearing heavily infested land is to take advantage of a plant’s tendencies to move its roots nearer to the soil’s surface when it is deprived of light. To make use of this principle, aided by a decaying process of the top growth of weeds, etc., it is necessary to subject such growth to heat and moisture in order to speed up the decay. This is done by applying lime, then a heavy straw cover, and then the herbal compost activator…The following are required: Sufficient new straw to cover an area to be cleared to a depth of 3 to 4 inches.”

The O’Brien method also advocates minimal disturbance of the soil by tilling, the use of cover crops and green manures, the creation of permanent raised beds and permanent hard-packed paths between them, the alignment of beds along a north-south axis, and planting in double rows or more so that not every row has a path on both sides. Use of animal manure is prohibited.

Articles
Veganic is the New Permaculture (Part 1)
Veganic is the New Permaculture (Part 2)

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