Many
vegetarians want to garden without using animal products and without
any unnecessary killing of
even the humblest animal. We don't pretend to be laying down definitive
rules on this subject but here are a few notes that might help you
to manage your garden in a way that causes the minimum of animal
suffering.
Fertilisers
Try
not to use peat if you can help it. Britain's peat bogs are rapidly disappearing
with the consequent destruction of wildlife. Two million tonnes of peat
are sold to gardeners every year! Use home-made compost if you can or buy
composted forest bark a renewable resource from managed plantations. A
new product in garden centres is composted coconut fibre or coir. This
consists of the outer husks of coconuts so it is an ecologically acceptable,
renewable resource. Trials have shown it performs as well as peat-based
compost.
Spent mushroom compost, spent
hops (as a top dressing) and composted stable manure are alternative
fertilisers.
Dried blood and fish meal are
often used to add nitrogen to the soil, these are definitely not vegetarian
products. You should also look out for various kinds of composted manures
that are on sale these days, some even labelled organic as many of
them contain manure from factory farmed animals or droppings from battery-kept
chickens. Brands carrying the Soil Association's symbol come from free
range houses.
Seaweed
fertilisers are a good and acceptable substitute. Calcified seaweed
however, is crushed coral,
which is technically animal and besides, the way it is harvested
is not good for the sea-bed environment! Bonemeal is a slaughterhouse
byproduct. In addition to being non vegetarian, we hear that now
organic
growing is on the increase, bonemeal is being imported from South
American countries where cattle ranching is helping to destroy the
rainforest.
There is no evidence yet that BSE might be transmitted through bonemeal,
but in view of the uncertainties about the origin and transmission
of this disease and the fact that the causative agent seems to survive
heat treatment, this is something that should be taken into consideration.
There is also the probability that bonemeal may actually contain
the cremated remains of pet cats and dogs. Don't use a product called
worm
compost without investigating its source. Some methods of making
it are acceptable, but others may cause injury to the worms, or even
kill
them.
If
you make your own compost, you know what's gone into it so you can
be sure that it is acceptable.
Invest in a compost bin, or make your own, or if you are really short
of space, use a heavy duty polythene sack. Put a shovelful of soil
at the bottom to provide the organisms that start off the fermenting
process, then add layers of kitchen waste, fallen leaves, grass cuttings
and any other organic waste matter, even shredded paper will compost,
used kitchen roll and paper hankies (if you must use them! There
are more environmentally-friendly alternatives) will compost very
easily.
Tough things like cabbage stalks and banana skins should be cut into
smaller pieces. Annual weeds can be put in whole but perennial weeds
should have their roots cut off and discarded, never put any part
of the plant bindweed into your compost, even small pieces will root
and
your garden will have a wonderful crop of bindweed when you spread
the compost!
Make sure you don't add quantities
of extra soil when you add weeds, it can slow down the fermentation
process. If you are using the polythene sack method, tie the sack off
when it is nearly full and pierce two or three air holes in the sides
and leave to rot down until about a third of the original bulk is left,
then turn out and spread on your soil. Most compost bins have provision
for you to remove compost from the bottom without emptying the entire
bin so the process can be continuous.
Some completely inorganic fertilisers
are available, although frowned upon by the organic movement, they
do have the advantage of being produced without any animal exploitation.
Phosphate rock is mined from natural deposits and superphosphate is
produced by treating it with sulphuric acid. Potash (potassium) is
also mined from deposits of potassium chloride laid down when ancient
seas dried up. Potash is suitable for immediate application and doesn't
need further treatment.
Inorganic nitrogen fertilisers
are based on ammonia, which in turn is made from nitrogen extracted
from the air. The usual fertilisers are ammonium nitrate and ammonium
sulphate, the latter is also a byproduct of the steel and manmade fibre
industries. The Fertiliser Manufacturers' Association says that as
far as it is aware, no animal testing of inorganic fertilisers is done
in Britain as the fertilisers have stood the test of time and, if used
properly, should do no harm. However, some foreign companies have carried
out animal-based research.
If you have just treated your
garden or lawn with an inorganic fertiliser, do keep any vegetarian
pets like rabbits and tortoises from grazing on it until there has
been a good fall of rain to wash the fertiliser in, concentrated fertiliser
can poison if ingested. One of the objections to vegetarianism you
sometimes hear is that without animal farming, there wouldn't be enough
manure to make organic farming possible. People who think this forget
about their own waste products. Human faeces can be safely composted
without hazard to health if a simple process is followed. This provides
a truly humane source of fertiliser, it saves the pollution of waterways
and coasts caused by our present system of sewage disposal, it conserves
plant nutrients one person's annual excrement is the equivalent of
25kg of commercially produced 20:10:10 NPK fertiliser. There is no
real objection to using human excrement as fertiliser except in people's
minds. For instructions on how to construct a simple, safe, odorless
Eco-loo contact the National Centre for Alternative Technology.
Plants of the pea family, including
ornamentals like sweet peas and lupins, have the ability to fix nitrogen
from the air. They do this by means of special bacteria which live
in nodules in the roots, so after growing a crop of peas, beans, sweet
peas etc don't pull the roots out when the plant is finished, dig them
back into the soil to release the nitrogen.
Pest Control
Perhaps
the best way to control insect pests is to invite natural predators into
your garden. If you have room, dig a pond to encourage frogs, this needs
to be an informal pond with varying depths and at least one side sloping
up gradually so the frogs have easy access.
Toads too are good friends.
They don't spend as much time as frogs do in water but they need some
undisturbed, dampish nooks and crannies to hide in. Always have a bird
bath and make sure it is kept topped up with clean water and that it
doesn't freeze over in winter. Encourage the birds to stay near your
garden in winter when there are few insects by putting out bird food.
Plant some leafy bushes or small trees so the birds have places to
hide in and feel secure. Shrubs with berries in winter are even better
as they provide more winter food. Encourage hedgehogs by not being
too tidy, leave some scrub and leaf litter under sheltered hedges and
in dark corners for them. If you have a large garden, consider nesting
boxes for birds (advice from the RSPB) and little kennels for hedgehogs
to hibernate in.
Nesting boxes and hedgehog boxes
can be bought from many suppliers. Leave some corners of the garden
deliberately undisturbed for wildlife.
Hedgehogs suffer in times of
drought, put out a dish of water for them. Natural insect predators
can be encouraged into the garden by having a variety of plants.
Don't plant up large beds of
the same crop; have small patches interspersed with bright flowering
plants like marigolds. This not only attracts insect predators, but
makes it harder for the pests to spread rapidly if one patch of crop
does get infected. Phacelia is said to be a magnet for hoverflies and
hoverflies prey on aphids. Ladybirds are your friends! Avoid disturbance
of hedge bottoms where they lie up in winter. Common predatory insects
are ladybirds, blue bottles and green bottles, lacewings. Natural predators
for various pests can be purchased if you don't have them in the garden
already. Look for biological controls in gardening magazine small ads.
Do learn to identify the larvae of beneficial insects as they may look
very different from the adults. For example, the black, caterpillar-like
larvae of ladybirds may often be mistaken for pests! Practice crop
rotation.
Try physical barriers against
pests, for example, a fence of polythene sheeting around carrot plants
stops carrot flies from getting in. Tight fitting discs of felt or
old carpet around brassicas discourages cabbage root fly. You can now
buy horticultural fleece, a material which lets in light and rain but
keeps out flying insects looking for a place to lay eggs. Vegetable
crops can be protected by stretching this fleece over wire or cane
hoops to make a tent over the plot. Plastic plant pots, lined with
newspaper and balanced upside down on the top of garden canes will
trap earwigs and vine weevils, which can then be physically carried
away from the garden.
Larger pests like caterpillars
can also be picked off by hand and carried away. Pests like greenfly
can be washed off plants with a medium to high pressure hose.
Plant resistant varieties. Plants
that are in good health have a better resistance to pests so always
make sure you provide the optimum growing conditions for any particular
variety take care with things like soil pH, light, drainage, exposure
to winds etc. The use of home-made compost strengthens plants and increases
resistance to pests. Liming discourages brassica club root. Conversely,
don't plant varieties that you know from experience don't do well in
your garden.
You should be aware that derris
and pyrethrum, the pesticides allowed in organic horticulture, are
not particularly selective and may kill beneficial insects like ladybirds,
bees and butterflies. They are also poisonous to fish if they get into
a pond or stream.
Chemical pesticides, on the
contrary, may be highly selective indeed though of course, you have
to remember they may have been tested on animals. So please think very
carefully before you spray anything, ask yourself is it really necessary,
try other methods of pest control first and if you feel spraying is
absolutely imperative, make sure you are using the right one for the
job. If you absolutely must spray, do it at dusk when bees, butterflies
etc are not active to minimise any chance of hurting them. Don't be
in too much of a hurry to spray, pests initially increase at a faster
rate than their natural predators, but often if you wait, the predators
will catch up and do the job for you.
Slugs are a nuisance but most
commercial slug killers contain the very poisonous metaldehyde. This
kills off beneficial soil animals as well as slugs, is dangerous to
pets, hedgehogs etc and the poisoned bodies of the slugs may get eaten
by birds who are poisoned in turn. If you don't want to kill slugs,
you can protect susceptible plants with a physical barrier like soot,
sharp gravel or sand (slugs don't like irritants on their delicate
undersurfaces!). If you are lucky, this sometimes works. Or you can
trap slugs alive by putting out half orange skins, or sinking pots
into the soil with some bait inside, then physically take them away
from your garden. Gardening Which, in one of its trials, found that
the beer trap, so beloved of organic gardeners, actually killed more
beneficial creatures than slugs! So they advised you to drink all your
beer and cut 4 inch deep rings from the plastic bottles to make slug
barriers for individual plants.
These need to be buried at least
1 cm deep in the soil, but proved very effective at keeping slugs out
until the plants have grown enough to be able to withstand a little
slug damage. By the way, it is the little grey and white slugs that
damage plants, the big black and brown ones are useful scavengers!
If ants are getting into your
kitchen from the garden, try to find the point of entry and place a
line of red chilli pepper, paprika and/or dried peppermint there to
deter them. Washing kitchen surfaces with equal parts vinegar and water
is also said to work.
Wasps get a bad press but actually
they are not vicious, they don't sting unless provoked so don't panic
and wave your arms about when one appears. Keep them out of the house
with net curtains at windows and a bead curtain at the kitchen door.
Wasps feed their young on other insects and do a good job of keeping
down pests in the garden.
Mammals can sometimes cause
damage to gardens. Cats can be deterred by placing stems of pruned
roses around the base of plants. Old lemonade bottles or jam jars half
full of water and left in strategic points around the garden can also
help persuade cats to go elsewhere!
Moles are said to dislike vibrations
and sticking children's plastic windmills in their runs may persuade
them to go next door! The same effect can also be produced by sinking
bottles into their runs so the wind blowing over the open top makes
a noise.
It is said mice can be deterred
by companion planting with spurge (Euphorbia lactea or Euphorbia lathyrus
or Caper Spurge). It should be sown around the garden, one plant every
six metres. I've also heard that mice don't like getting their feet
dirty and a ring of soot around seedlings will keep them away but that
might just be an old wive's tale!
Weed Control
The
organic movement is right to discourage the use of all herbicides. Weeds
can nearly always be controlled effectively by other means. In a vegetable
plot, hoe between the rows regularly to keep weed seedlings from taking
root. Or use a mulch of black polythene, newspaper, leaf mould etc to
help suppress weed growth. In the ornamental garden you can again use
mulch, composted bark or gravel looks attractive, or you can underplant
your shrubs etc with ground cover plants so there's no space left for
weeds. This means some weeding for the first few years, but once the
ground cover is established, the weeds get smothered. Suitable ground
cover plants include: vinca, epimedium, lamiums, saxifragas, heathers,
sedums, etc.
If you have stubborn perennial
weeds like thistles, cut them down two or three times during the summer
and in particular, just before they flower. This not only prevents
them from setting seed, it also uses up their food reserves and weakens
them, so eventually they die out.
Some recent German research
suggests that many weed seeds need only a short flash of light to trigger
germination and they postulate that working the ground at night, without
any artificial light either, could reduce the germination of weeds
considerably! However, there is a risk that eventually there would
be a build-up of species that can germinate in complete darkness.
Endangered Species
Do
be careful when buying bulbs. Over the last few years it has become fashionable
to grow the species of various kinds of crocus, dwarf iris, tulip, daffodil,
snowdrop etc. Often these are gathered from the wild in vast quantities,
so much so that they are becoming endangered species in the wild.
Please don't encourage this
trade, always check that your bulbs come from a reputable supplier
and are nursery propagated. If in doubt, don't buy the species, buy
a named variety because then you can be sure it has been nursery bred.
Needless to say, you should
never gather seeds, bulbs or rooted plants from the wild yourself as
this could cause irreparable damage to environments. If you want to
plant a wild flower garden, it is possible to get seeds and bulbs grown
in cultivation by reputable dealers.
If
you like flower arranging, be careful when buying dried everlasting
flower heads at Garden centres,
make sure they come from cultivated sources and are not picked from
the wild, especially the more exotic kinds. Several species prized
for their beauty as dried heads are on the endangered list. Also,
do think several times before buying stone for rockeries, paving
etc.
All over Britain valuable wildlife habitats are being destroyed by
quarrying.
Think twice before having a
bonfire, it adds to the greenhouse effect, releasing carbon dioxide
into the atmosphere. But if you must have a bonfire, before lighting
it, do check that no small animals have crawled into it. A bonfire
makes a very inviting bedroom for a hedgehog, for example.
Further Information
- Peatlands Campaign,
RSNC, 22 The Green, Nettleham, Lincoln.
- Alternatives to Peat (leaflet),
Henry Doubelday Research Association, National Centre for Organic
Gardening, Ryton-on-Dunsmore, Coventry, CV8 3LG.
- Fertiliser Manufacturers
Association, Greenhill House, Thorpe Wood, Peterborough, PE3
6GF.
- Successful Organic Pest
Control by Trevor Forsythe/Thorsons has a good chapter about
attracting natural predators into your garden.
- Composting Domestic Sewage.
80p. Centre for Alternative Technology, Machynlleth, Powys, SY20
9AZ. Tel: 01654 702400.
- The Henry Doubleday Research
Organisation, Ryton Organic Gardens, Ryton on Dunsmore, Coventry,
CV8 3LG. Tel: 01203 303517
- Info sheet on pest
control
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