Opinions on veganics?

[unclefishstick]

as far as i know there's no vegan organic certification?

i also doubt that most of them view wormcrap collecting as exploitation and injust suffering for the poor wormies or comparable to honey production, except maybe the most quasi-religious purists.

growing plants with plants (and the little guys) is interesting in itself. kyle kushman veganics is gimmicky marketing, but i quess that's been stated many times already

i think a lot of people are confusing veganism with veganics,vegans are people who dont eat any type of animal products (ie dairy,eggs..) as opposed to vegetarians who may include things like eggs in their diets. veganic nutes come from a variety of sources including mined minerals and plant extracts,it is really nothing but bottled yeast poop of some sort,liquefied for the convenience of the lazy masses,general organics makes no claims to being organic or for that matter the bottles say"vganic" on them so i personally see no chicanery on the part of the manufacturer,if the consumers are too dumb to research on their own than thats their fault right?

 

[unthing]

unclefistick, yeah good points.

i'd quess that vegan organic network originated from people with vegan ethics, could be wrong. i kind of see blurry connection with veganism and veganics. idea of being free of animal products and somekind of ideal of pureness and cleaniness. not that the network invented the techniques used.

many people using these type of methods probably have omnivore diet and their interest for this type of gardening originated from other sources.

the principles posted by c-ray didn't mention wormcastings, so they are counted as animal product then? is it a debatable issue in the circles? once again my understanding of vegan ethics is not about being pure as possible, but to avoid cruelty towards animals as far as practical.

inform me in my ignorance.

 

[SeaMaiden]

i think a lot of people are confusing veganism with veganics,vegans are people who dont eat any type of animal products (ie dairy,eggs..) as opposed to vegetarians who may include things like eggs in their diets. veganic nutes come from a variety of sources including mined minerals and plant extracts,it is really nothing but bottled yeast poop of some sort,liquefied for the convenience of the lazy masses,general organics makes no claims to being organic or for that matter the bottles say"vganic" on them so i personally see no chicanery on the part of the manufacturer,if the consumers are too dumb to research on their own than thats their fault right?

I thought (read: assumed) that the whole veganic plant feeding thing was essentially an offshoot of veganism. I question those vegans I know on the why of their veganism, and I can totally wrap my head around their ideas and concepts. It's not a fit for me, especially when we're talking organ meats, but I can dig it. Just like I can dig religion-based cannibalism. Ain't my thing, but I understand what they mean and the ideas behind it.

People like living a paradigm.

 

[unclefishstick]

unclefistick, yeah good points.

i'd quess that vegan organic network originated from people with vegan ethics, could be wrong. i kind of see blurry connection with veganism and veganics. idea of being free of animal products and somekind of ideal of pureness and cleaniness. not that the network invented the techniques used.

many people using these type of methods probably have omnivore diet and their interest for this type of gardening originated from other sources.

the principles posted by c-ray didn't mention wormcastings, so they are counted as animal product then? is it a debatable issue in the circles? once again my understanding of vegan ethics is not about being pure as possible, but to avoid cruelty towards animals as far as practical.

inform me in my ignorance.

well most of the vegans i have met were sorta intolerant fanatics to be honest,not to mention sort of sickly looking...

all my veganic fed plants on the other hand have been thriving exemplars of glowing health...

now im nowhere near as knowledgeable about this stuff as many of the folks who post here but what i get from veganics is that the bulk of plants living in the wild obtain a good deal of their nutrients from broken down plant matter thats naturally composted by the soil organisms,all the bottled veganic nutes are is bio digested stuff,no different really than calling them fermented plant extracts (in my opinion)

I thought (read: assumed) that the whole veganic plant feeding thing was essentially an offshoot of veganism. I question those vegans I know on the why of their veganism, and I can totally wrap my head around their ideas and concepts. It's not a fit for me, especially when we're talking organ meats, but I can dig it. Just like I can dig religion-based cannibalism. Ain't my thing, but I understand what they mean and the ideas behind it.

People like living a paradigm.

well,i eat the heck out of some dead critters so my using veganics is about the pure simple ease of them,no fussing with pH,almost impossible to fuck up with,and excellent quality end product...plus my houseplants absolutely love the stuff!

 

[c-ray]

I think there is some concern amongst the veganazis about immune system compromised individuals consuming weed grown with animal manures, and this includes ewc derived from livestock manures

 

[unthing]

c-ray, immune system compromised individuals meaning vegans, or sick people?. if the first one then it's damn funny.

 

[BlueJayWay]

Veganism (/ˈviːgənɪzəm/) is the practice of abstaining from the use of animal products,

An earthworm is a tube-shaped, segmented animal that is commonly found living in soil.

"Earthworm" is the common name for the largest members of Oligochaeta (which is either a class or subclass depending on the author) in the phylum Annelida.

"i'd quess that vegan organic network originated from people with vegan ethics"

That is exactly right, outside the cannabis world, it's much more strict & inline with ones dietary, ethical & environmental choices.

You can see way too many cannabis growers touting veganics while using EWC and guanos etc, it's a little silly, you can garden "veganic" or you can garden "organic," doesn't matter how little poo you use, as soon as it's in your soil, the term veganics cannot apply.

It's kinda funny though that 99.9% of non-cannabis vegan gardening is done in the great outdoors so obviously plenty of animals are at work in and around the soil & garden . Obviously the point is to not bring in external sources of animal (by)products, just funny to note that, by definition, vegan gardening is virtually impossible in a natural outdoor setting.

And there's certainly nothing wrong with man and animal (including composting worms) cohabitating and benefiting from each other. I'd love to have your typical little farm home(yeah, even on the prairy ) and all the animals that go with it! (I know some of you here do!)

 

[unclefishstick]

oh yeah,the pura vida line of veganic nutes does have an omri cert tag on it,so its "organic" but as far as i know there is no separate certification for veganics

 

[unthing]

i understand the purist definition. i just don't understand how worms are exploited in the process compared to manures which are byproduct of evil industry or guanos which are, at least an ecological disaster

hydrofertilizers are purely vegan (like somebody mentioned before) but they support evil capitalism and therefore are not good, not to mention ecological disaster.

and, um veganism is concerned with the exploitation of animal kingdom, so bacteria, fungi and such are ok (avoiding of suffering of all life is something else) , just don't have those nematodes! so in theory you could have purely vegan organic setup, probably easier indoors or super quarantined greenhouse if electricity use is issue.

 

[BlueJayWay]

i just don't understand how worms are exploited in the process compared to manures which are byproduct of evil industry or guanos

I agree, it's not the same thing and I think it would be silly not to use kitchen/garden/farm made worm castings because you're trying to fit into a label. Well they are exploited but I don't think anyone's going to be watching videos on youtube of worm farms and shedding tears - unlike those videos of how cows get slaughtered, and that one of the mama pig who's being dragged away by the neck and all it's baby pig are screaming and trying to reach through the fence for their mom, i mean hot damn I just got myself worked up again, fuckin' sad to see, and pigs are more intelligent than the average dog, or so the saying goes...

ANYWAYS, I have a kelp tea to go make Vegan or not, keep it Organic eh? And don't beat your worms!

 

[unclefishstick]

now i think you may be confusing vegans and buddist! buddist try not to harm living things at all,vegans maybe not so much...there is a difference between not eating something and not exploiting some creatures work,vegans certainly benefit from bees and such pollinating their fruits and veggies,and they certainly benefit from the tireless work of the noble earthworm...
none of the "veganic" gardeners i know use "pure" systems of veganics only,myself included,some type of critter poop comes into play at some point...
as far as i know,veganic gardening and veganism have no direct correlation,none of the veganic gardeners i know are also vegetarians of any stripe,as i have said,i use them because they are stupid easy to use and work very well,i admit that i am looking for bottled easy though...

 

[Scrappy4]

Here is the science on veganics. Wanna buy a pet rock? Scrappy


Fad
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For other uses, see FAD (disambiguation).
A fad is any form of behavior that develops among a large population and is collectively followed with enthusiasm for some period, generally as a result of the behavior's being perceived as novel in some way.[1] A fad is said to "catch on" when the number of people adopting it begins to increase rapidly. The behavior will normally fade quickly once the perception of novelty is gone.[1]
The specific nature of the behavior associated with a fad can be of any type including language usage, apparel, financial investment, and even food. Apart from general novelty, fads may be driven by mass media programming, emotional excitement, peer pressure, or the desire of 'being hip'.[2]
Though the term trend may be used interchangeably with fad, a fad is generally considered a fleeting behavior whereas a trend is considered to be a behavior that evolves into a relatively permanent change.[3]
In the late 1950s, the word beatnik have been a major fad when a journalist coined it as a portmanteau between "beat" and "sputnik". However, it faded away as its original proponents abandoned the underlying attitudes which were supposed to go along with it. Though this fad, in and of itself, was short-lived, it is credited with giving birth to the hippie movement in the following decade, and with inspiring other social trends in the decades that followed.[4]
[edit]

 

[unclefishstick]

so then its a lot like Total Living Organics?

heres a joke i read here on IC...

how can you tell an organic grower?
give them a minute they are about to tell you in mind rending detail all about it!

 

[c-ray]

personally I love exploiting worms..they don't seem to mind regular delivery of animal manure either

 

[unthing]

unclefishstick, it's all for the fun of wordplay

edit:nothing important

 

[c-ray]

from http://www.stockfreeorganic.net/category/whatandwhy/

Stockfree Organic…

Iain Tolhurst

“…large-scale stockless systems for cereals work both in terms of sustainability and economic viability”

Read Iain’s response to an article appeared in the UK magazine Organic Gardening, giving the opinion that it was impossible to grow organically without using animal manures!

Many of the methods described have been explained in past editions of Growing Green, however this article also gives an insight into Iain’s practical personal motivation.
Before I explore the practicalities of how a stock-free organic system can be made to work I should tell you a little about my own history in agriculture.

I started work on a large commercial dairy farm back in the early seventies. I had always liked the idea of farming although there was nobody in my distant family past that we knew of that had indulged in this noble profession. I suppose I had a picture book idealist image of what made up a farm, cows in the meadow, sheep in the corn, lazy summer days, that sort of thing. The reality was somewhat different; the land was under intense pressure to produce and was looking rather sick. Not to mention the unhealthy animals that rarely managed to last more than 5 lactations before being sent off to slaughter riddled with disease so this led me to explore the organic alternative. In those days there wasn’t much to find out about, most people thought we were crazy to try and grow without chemicals, indeed some people thought it was reckless.

Eventually we found a scrubby piece of land in Cornwall and started to carve a living from it, supplemented by odd jobs to bring in some cash. In part we were an example of the back to the land movement that Chas Griffin writes so eloquently about in the Organic Gardening magazine. I wanted to prove that it was commercially viable to grow organically to serve as an example to others. By this time we had been vegetarian for several years; it was an inevitable result of the large dairy unit that brought about this radical lifestyle change.

So the problem was how would we be able to grow organically without animals? It was an accepted philosophy of Lady Eve Balfour and the Soil Association that animals were an integral part of the whole system; you needed the muck to grow the food to feed the animals to grow the food. But I was only interested in growing food to feed people not animals. I didn’t have room for them on my miserable windswept 5 acres. We had a few goats for a while; you need to be a masochist to keep goats, (they pull your arms out of their sockets) just to provide a means of getting manure. But then we had to buy expensive cereal to feed them and use valuable land for hay. Sure enough they kept the hedges tidy, ate all the brambles too but they forever wanted to get into our vegetable fields to eat our best crops, so in the end they were despatched off to another masochist.

We toyed with bringing in manure from off site, but this was hard work to handle we had no tractor and it used to make our van smell a bit whiffy which didn’t go down too well when we dropped the kids off at school. It needed composting and then there was the problem of a reliable source without chemical contamination plus the fact that we would need in excess of 70 tonnes a year to support our vegetable unit. So in time we developed another system based almost exclusively on green manures.

I had heard a vague mention that the Chinese had managed to feed their people on a mostly vegetarian diet with the extensive use of green manures so thinking that this ought to be achievable in our climate too. It was a clear fact that you could certainly feed a lot more people this way, as much as three to five times more, so why wasn’t everybody doing this?

For the same reason that most farmers were not organic, vested interest from the global conglomerate boys selling all those expensive goodies to support the system. Farms that run on green manures don’t have to buy much in at all apart from seeds and even those could be home produced. And farmers are locked into believing that to produce you have to be plugging in massive inputs. And then of course everybody tells you that this concept is impossible to operate in the real world, but then that is what they told me about organics 28 years ago. But at the back of my mind was this nagging fear that a huge swath of my valuable and now slightly improved land would be sitting around doing nothing except growing pretty clover and Lucerne. Not going to be easy persuading the bank manager that this was the way forward to prosperity.

A change of farm, in 1988 with a longer tenancy, slightly better land and much better climate in South Oxfordshire was the catalyst that brought around a radical change in the farming system. In time I designed a rotation that was completely stock-free, in fact there are three separate rotations, one for field vegetables (7hectares) one for garden crops (0.5 hectares) and one for the poly-tunnels (1700 metres) The longest rotation is in the garden with 9 years, the field is 7 years and the tunnels are just 4-5 years. Extensive use is made of a whole range of green manures; especially important are legumes such as clover, trefoil and Lucerne. These are primary fertility builders and the outdoor rotations have a period of at least 30 months when they are present. The problems of having too much land tied up in green manures and not producing a saleable crop have been much reduced by under-sowing growing crops with legumes to follow on after the crop is harvested. I am also able to plant some crops direct into fertility builders and produce a good result.

So the area of crops to green manures is now up to 70% cropped land and this is economically viable. Regular soil analysis has shown that we are steadily improving fertility especially phosphate and potash, due to the deep rooting foraging of the legumes. The soil fauna has improved dramatically with better health of the seventy odd crops that we grow for our 300 per week box scheme. We still make vegetable compost for the tunnel crops and a bit for the garden area from our own waste materials and we would consider more composted waste from our customers if we were able to source it locally through council operated systems.

Its not just small intensive production units such as ours that can make this system work, the big boys can play this game too. Trials at Elm Farm Research Centre over many years have shown that large-scale stockless systems for cereals work both in terms of sustainability and economic viability. This has been endorsed by similar trials at ADAS Terrington growing potatoes and cereals using red clover.

But hang on a minute I hear you say, what about feeding the green manures to livestock, that way you get the best of both worlds, earning from the animals as well as fertility for crops. Well actually no it is not so simple. Firstly animal production unless done on a huge scale will lose you money, we would need fences, buildings, water supply and a market for small amounts; too much bureaucracy too with hundreds of forms to fill in. Secondly you don’t get anything for nothing, animals use energy, and they produce heat, methane and lots of waste products. You can not expect to get more fertility than you started with, you will inevitably need to buy in food to feed your animals, so you are buying in acres from elsewhere, somebody else’s fertility being lost. Look around the countryside, what do you see, lots of grass and maize in the West, lots of cereals and maize in the Midlands and East. More than 65% of these cereal crops go to feed animals, and then there is the huge amounts imported from all over the world at great cost to the environment. Organic farmers are no exception here; they are also importing feed cereals to support their stock farms. Some of this manure is going to support vegetable and more cereal production. So the organic movement is far from sustainable in its present form and if there were a ban on imported cereal then even more of our countryside would end up looking like a cereal prairie. An increase in organic conversions in UK would compound this problem even more as stocking levels would be lower and more land would be needed to feed animals.

So then you are now getting to see the picture, clearly there has to be a reduction in livestock farming if we are to even contemplate being able to feed the growing global population. Much good land is going to livestock production; it could be growing primary food products for feeding direct to people. But then there is much land in poorer hilly parts where it is not possible to grow crops, but how about planting trees? They will grow on the worst soils to provide fruits, nuts and timber for fuel and enhance the landscape as well as providing real rural jobs for local people. Sure enough people love to eat meat, but they use up too much land in the process, they will have to reduce or remove this from their diet. And of course they love to see animals wandering in the countryside, well if it is that important then there could be herds of semi-wild beasts wandering around on common type land. We just need a bit of land reform to bring about some sensible sustainable land use. Given that the EU is committed to funding agriculture to such a high level then it’s just a question of shovelling the money around a bit differently.

Now that organics is regular mainstream the time is ready to move forward to stockless systems that truly respect the land and our fellow animals.

 

[unclefishstick]

personally I love exploiting worms..they don't seem to mind regular delivery of animal manure either

exploiting the worm...is that another metaphor for choking the chicken?

unclefishstick, it's all for the fun of wordplay

edit:nothing important

oh yeah,its been a lively debate,i have been enjoying it quite a bit,i read in this forum quite a bit but never post much because i already knew the whole bottled veganics thing was not considered kosher by the hard core organic soil/act/recycling set,and to be honest i likely have nothing germane to add to any of the conversations as i am far far outclassed in knowledge by many of the frequent posters...so i just read...

and its not like i really know all that much about these nute lines,i got them initially for free from a sampler pack someone got at a convention,i had no money for nutes and didnt want to use the available chem nutes so i was sorta stuck with them..
at first i hated them,had all sorts of problems because i was adjusting the pH of the nutes,found an article about them and the feeding chart,discovered no pH adjustment was needed,figured out what was what in the 9000 bottles of brown smelly stuff in the line,and finally got them figured out,got a good regime together and never looked back.

i had tried many many organic liquid nute lines and mixing and recycling my own soil ,composting,the works really,i had a dozen garbage cans of mix in various states at one time,constant fungus gnat battles,having whole garbage cans of mix go bad on me....in short,i managed to fuck up in every possible way i could...for years...i mean i truly sucked at growing...not that im anything more than an average grower now,but i used to be just awful at it...well,yah learn about the whole thing,and sooner or later it all kinda starts to make sense,heck,i can even read the connel clark book now and come away with something applicable to my garden!

but the real turn around for me was veganics,and at least partially removing my head from my ass and learning a bit,which is really the most important thing to do no matter what form of growing you choose for yourself.i like veganics because im lazy and stupid,its not made of anything terribly sinister,doesnt really cost that much in the big picture,i have a garden full of healthy plants,and plenty of smooth smoking frosty buds to smoke..


im really rambling here,smoking some fine "vganic" cindy99 tonight

 

[MrSterling]

exploiting the worm...is that another metaphor for choking the chicken?View Image


oh yeah,its been a lively debate,i have been enjoying it quite a bit,i read in this forum quite a bit but never post much because i already knew the whole bottled veganics thing was not considered kosher by the hard core organic soil/act/recycling set,and to be honest i likely have nothing germane to add to any of the conversations as i am far far outclassed in knowledge by many of the frequent posters...so i just read...

Uncle, please don't be a stranger here in the organics forum! I hope I speak for many when I say "The more the merrier", whether you go with or against the grain. Some of the posters here can be a bit course at times, but it's my opinion you should stand your ground and call them out on it. If Veganics works for you, that's what really matters.

 

[unclefishstick]

i still havent even finished reading the stickies yet,once i have digested (and then excreted !lol) that i may have something to add to the conversation....

until then i must keep my super duper ultra mega top secret growing method that uses fiji water under wraps.....you know,the bottled water that comes from a tiny island in the middle of the pacific ocean shipped at great ecological stupidity to america? gosh i love this country!

 

[HAZE FIEND]

exploiting the worm...is that another metaphor for choking the chicken?View Image


oh yeah,its been a lively debate,i have been enjoying it quite a bit,i read in this forum quite a bit but never post much because i already knew the whole bottled veganics thing was not considered kosher by the hard core organic soil/act/recycling set,and to be honest i likely have nothing germane to add to any of the conversations as i am far far outclassed in knowledge by many of the frequent posters...so i just read...

and its not like i really know all that much about these nute lines,i got them initially for free from a sampler pack someone got at a convention,i had no money for nutes and didnt want to use the available chem nutes so i was sorta stuck with them..
at first i hated them,had all sorts of problems because i was adjusting the pH of the nutes,found an article about them and the feeding chart,discovered no pH adjustment was needed,figured out what was what in the 9000 bottles of brown smelly stuff in the line,and finally got them figured out,got a good regime together and never looked back.

i had tried many many organic liquid nute lines and mixing and recycling my own soil ,composting,the works really,i had a dozen garbage cans of mix in various states at one time,constant fungus gnat battles,having whole garbage cans of mix go bad on me....in short,i managed to fuck up in every possible way i could...for years...i mean i truly sucked at growing...not that im anything more than an average grower now,but i used to be just awful at it...well,yah learn about the whole thing,and sooner or later it all kinda starts to make sense,heck,i can even read the connel clark book now and come away with something applicable to my garden!

but the real turn around for me was veganics,and at least partially removing my head from my ass and learning a bit,which is really the most important thing to do no matter what form of growing you choose for yourself.i like veganics because im lazy and stupid,its not made of anything terribly sinister,doesnt really cost that much in the big picture,i have a garden full of healthy plants,and plenty of smooth smoking frosty buds to smoke..


im really rambling here,smoking some fine "vganic" cindy99 tonight

View Image

lovely shot bro! i am just maing the transition from organics to veganics now the only thing that isnt is my batmix soil with 10percent guano so 10% organic still lol but i am havin trouble with my c99s at mo in end of veg they got a bad mag def that led to phos n nit n possible cal defsto b coz i was worride bout the ph droppin so much n was only feedin half nutes till i found the mycohorzae n enzymes n other benificials help makes the ph not matter as much n make nutes more available.. i havnt increased my dose yet just more frequent feeds a few teas n some more top dresses of mycohorzae or however u spell it lol but u think i should up it to full 8ml gallon like kyle kushman says he does with bio canna range? how do u feed yours through veg plz pal? and also through flower plz mate she seems to be the hardest girl i ever tried to help along her way n is only just greening up mafetr some epsom salts applyed the other day so i would just like some advice plz as your cindy girl looks beautiful!!!