[Corky]

Hi there,
I'm a complete and utter newbie when it comes to gardening, but any time I do a web search I end up here so I thought I should bite the bullet and sign up

Before now, my sum total of knowledge has come from the odd basil plant on the window sill, so I'll have a load of daft questions.

We live in Cork and have just got a new 8m x 3.5m polytunnel and have put some tomato, pepper, chili and basil plants in there, but will be looking to expand the range of plants in there - I was disappointed that my Google searching showed that Avocados grow on 20m tall trees

I'm sure that being vegan will cause a bit of head-scratching when looking for solutions as some of the more common fertilizers and compost ingredients will be ruled out.

Anyway, on to the rest of the forum to begin my daft questions!

Cheers.

[tippben]

Oho! This'll be fun! Fertilizing and soil improvement can be done using green manure, nettle/comfrey feed, and homemade compost/leaf mould. You'll presumably avoid animal manure and any artificial fertilizer (animal testing).

I think your big moral conundrum will be whether you're prepared to kill pests like aphids and slugs (by squishing them for example).

[kindredspirit]

I know of a vegan and she kills slugs by pushing a cocktail stick through them.
How can a vegan give one of God's creatures such an agonizing death?
She has extreme views on animal cruelty but slugs don't come into the equation. ???
I eat steaks, fish, chicken, kangaroo (if I can get it) but I give slugs their chance to become astronauts by launching them over my boundary wall. I suspect they don't take off into space but land harmlessly on the grass and continue their lunch.

[Corky]

Hi Tippben,
Straight to the heart of the matter there
Yep, slugs are the big question and the gits have already deforested large sections of my burgeoning garden. Other vegans have suggested encouraging hedgehogs to live nearby who will then pick off the slugs, so I think I'm going to have to live with the idea of using nematodes. After all they do live naturally in the ground so I'd just be tipping the balance a little.

Fertilizer, as you say, is the other big conundrum. I didn't even know bone and blood were used in fertilizers until I started a bit of Googling a few weeks ago. Came as quite a surprise I can tell you. I've seen other people mention comfrey as well which is a new one on me but there are no shortage of nettles. I'll have to get my calculator out to get the right proportions of everything - it seems fairly complex, but I'm sure it'll be enjoyable to work it all out.

@kindredspirit - your friend sounds like a non-standard vegan I have to say She must have had a traumatic experience with slugs as a child.

[tippben]

Another interesting point is animal manure. It is spread on the fields, therefore contributing to meat/milk production. Many farmers are happy to let you take some away for free. I collect sheep dung from a neighbour's field, for example. No money changes hands, so all I am doing is subtracting from the meat production cycle, and subverting it to my veg growing needs.

Also, a wormery. Yes, you'd technically be using the worms for your own ends, but at the same time encouraging them to reproduce and thrive, and turning your waste into high value compost, completely ecologically.

And the old chestnut me and my mates used to debate: is oral sex vegan?

[Corky]

Jaysus tippben - that would be an ecumenical matter

[Greengage]

Vegans will destroy the world with stored compost
http://avon-oh.patch.com/articles/mulch-spontaneously-combusts-sets-house-on-fire