Let's talk about gardening, shall we?

People have been asking me all kinds of questions about our garden, so I've put together an Q & A to answer some of them -- and also to explain some of our choices around techniques, products, materials, etc.

Q:  What is a raised bed garden?

A:  A raised bed garden is basically a container garden that sits ON TOP of the ground soil.  It can be done in many different ways, but our method involved building 4' x 4' boxes out of untreated 12" wide cedar planks.  Our boxes do not have bottoms, but they are lined with weed block out landscaping fabric.  This keeps them isolated from the ground soil, so no weeds can grow up through the boxes.  The boxes are then filled with a special lightweight "ORGANIC" soil mix recipe I created from several different ones out there.     

Q:  How is it that your garden is vegan?

A:  Our approach to this garden is "vegan" because we did not want to use animal products of any kind.  No manure.  No fish emulsion.  No worm castings.  This was tricky, because the bulk of products out there use some or all of the above.

Q:  What is in your garden soil?

A:  We used three main ingredients in equal parts (2 cubic feet each per box).  Peat Moss, Coco Coir, and Compost.  In the future, we would eliminate the peat moss and just use Coco Coir and Compost.  It turns out that there are environmental issues with Peat Moss (it is not a sustainable material).  It also breaks down five times faster than Coco Coir, and they essentially function the same way -- keeping the mix airy and soaking up water like a sponge and delivering it to the plant roots over a longer period of time.  

Q:  What kind of compost did you use?

A:  In an ideal world, we would have made all of our own compost and had it ready to go this year when we built the new garden.  We needed 24 cubic feet in all -- 2 cubic feet per box.  That's a lot of compost!  Since we did not have the sense to make it ourselves (it takes time), we sourced out a brand called Purple Cow.  It's the closest to certified organic we could find, and as far as we know, it is vegan.  (www.purplecoworganics.com)  In the future, we would definitely plan ahead and make our own -- out of grass clippings, leaves and veggie scraps from the kitchen.  

Q:  What's up with worms and worm castings?  Are they considered organic/vegan?

A:  The whole worm thing is confusing.  We have no problem using worms to make compost, but we haven't gotten around to putting together worm boxes or buying worms yet.  We actually found a local person on Craigslist who sells the worms (red wigglers are what you want,  I think).  As far as commercially sold worm castings go, the problem there is that there's no telling what the worms have been eating -- so what you get in "organic worm castings" is not necessarily free from pesticide residue, hormones and antibiotics (from non organic milk products).  The deception out there right now comes out of the idea that just because the worms digest it and poop it out, that it's somehow free of all the bad stuff.  I have yet to find certified organic worm castings, but we have managed to source out "vegan" worm castings -- which basically means that the worms are only fed vegetable and organic matter.  At this point, we've just avoided worm castings altogether in order to get around these issues -- but if we ever get to a place of having our own worm bin, I'd use castings from it in our garden.  Worms are cool!

Q:  What are you doing to fertilize your garden?

A:  Fertilizing is a little tricky with an organic & vegan garden that uses a growing medium instead of potting/ground soil.  There are some good vegan options out there in liquid form that you apply while watering.  Just Google organic vegan fertilizer.  Other than that, we've been jumping on the "Remineralize the Earth" bandwagon -- which I'll explain in another post.