Veganic forest gardens

Greetings community!

My name is Liu. I am focusing on discovering projects related to veganic gardening / farming happening around Europe. Currently living in Finland, for a few years I have been engaged in urban community gardening and experimenting developing my own small scale veggie producing space. Recently I have obtained a PDC certification in Portugal and have become very enthusiastic about permaculture as well.

Considering the above and a deep-held purposeful vision of working with natural systems, I am looking to bring my energy into projects dedicated to veganic food production embodying principles of permaculture. Perhaps, some of you reading this were thinking / feeling along the same lines, or some have already stepped half-way there but at this point missing people to continue driving your projects forward. I am here to join you, if so needed. In either case, I hope I can find you, people with similar visions! Please, reveal yourselves and we see where we can get together =).

Welcome to the forum!

How does a Veganic Forest Garden differ from a Forest Garden that most folks create?

Anne Miller wrote:Welcome to the forum!

How does a Veganic Forest Garden differ from a Forest Garden that most folks create?

Hi Anne! Thank you for the interest and your question (:

Veganic forest garden compared to a conventional one, does not use any inputs of animal origin such as manures, bone meal, etc; nor it forcefully integrates any animals within its systems such as chickens, pigs, rabbits, etc. who would end up slaughtered. However, it welcomes any creature who willingly come by to engage with the elements of the garden: all kinds of wild birds, bugs, animals who come and go as they please. One of the principles of such a garden is to attract beneficial fauna to create symbiotic relations between the garden and other living organisms as it is done in the Nature.

I hope that answers your question. And of course, there is more information on the Internet about this type of gardening

My forest garden areas have turned out pretty veganic, although I'm not vegan/veggie myself. I think most vegan systems would also exclude chickens and bees kept for eggs/honey. I don't keep livestock myself and haven't bothered import anything to improve the soil in those areas (although for various reasons I have in my annual growing areas more recently). Forest gardens often are low intensity gardening systems relying on perennial planting and trees for much of the produce, so I think are perfectly possible to create veganically.
I have enjoyed the increasing population of insects and birds that have appreciated the shelter the trees in my 'tree feild' provides. Although am struggling to get the birds to understand the notion of 'sharing' the berry harvest. The raspberries are fine, but the blueberries, honyberries and aronia they take almost all. I do have mice and voles sharing some of the harvest, and also caused some little damage to young trees when planted, but they are more of a problem on the annual crops (and they also seem to like the blueberries). Deer are excluded by tall fencing from most of my plantings (as are the neighbour's sheep!)

Liu Obraztco wrote:

Anne Miller wrote:Welcome to the forum!

How does a Veganic Forest Garden differ from a Forest Garden that most folks create?

Hi Anne! Thank you for the interest and your question (:

Veganic forest garden compared to a conventional one, does not use any inputs of animal origin such as manures, bone meal, etc; nor it forcefully integrates any animals within its systems such as chickens, pigs, rabbits, etc. who would end up slaughtered. However, it welcomes any creature who willingly come by to engage with the elements of the garden: all kinds of wild birds, bugs, animals who come and go as they please. One of the principles of such a garden is to attract beneficial fauna to create symbiotic relations between the garden and other living organisms as it is done in the Nature.

I hope that answers your question. And of course, there is more information on the Internet about this type of gardening :)

Thank you for this topic. I would look for any veganic forest garden with any community there, small as it needs to be, or that could be there, here in America, where I would much more likely go. I would not want animals that come and go excluded, but then what will be growing there for food cannot be in crops, but what grows among other compatible plants, while enough variety of foods from different plants is desirable for much better health than there would be with other ways.

That is good to hear that such gardens are also happened to be created unintentionally =). Yea, you are right that veganic gardens would exclude chickens and bees kept for eggs/honey, however 'bee-hotels' are very encouraged to be made.

Were there any particular practices you applied to increase the populations of insects and birds at your garden besides the given shades ad shelter naturally occurring in forest garden ecosystems?

Hehe, here in Finland we have, I'd say, an overwhelming amount of blackbirds. These species really like messy gardens and my small patch happens to be the messiest of those all around)). Black birds loved to dig my freshly put soil for earth worms, at times destroying newly planted seedlings, so I had to hang old CD discs to scare them off. Thankfully, it works so far, and now they only angrily squeak from a distance As for the birds eating blueberries, I put a fine white-transparent fabric enclosing the bush just when the berries about to start getting ripe, also seems to work.

Nancy Reading wrote:My forest garden areas have turned out pretty veganic, although I'm not vegan/veggie myself. I think most vegan systems would also exclude chickens and bees kept for eggs/honey. I don't keep livestock myself and haven't bothered import anything to improve the soil in those areas (although for various reasons I have in my annual growing areas more recently). Forest gardens often are low intensity gardening systems relying on perennial planting and trees for much of the produce, so I think are perfectly possible to create veganically.
I have enjoyed the increasing population of insects and birds that have appreciated the shelter the trees in my 'tree feild' provides. Although am struggling to get the birds to understand the notion of 'sharing' the berry harvest. The raspberries are fine, but the blueberries, honyberries and aronia they take almost all. I do have mice and voles sharing some of the harvest, and also caused some little damage to young trees when planted, but they are more of a problem on the annual crops (and they also seem to like the blueberries). Deer are excluded by tall fencing from most of my plantings (as are the neighbour's sheep!)

Liu Obraztco wrote:Were there any particular practices you applied to increase the populations of insects and birds at your garden besides the given shades ad shelter naturally occurring in forest garden ecosystems?

Not really - my main tree field is mainly for coppice wood, so I was thinking of tree varieties. I wanted a variety of trees that would grow well, but didn't really know what would grow well, so just planted lots of different sorts. Once the trees were established I planted berry bushes, and now some perennial vegetable areas (and a small area for annual vegetables). I'm ashamed to say I wasn't really thinking of the wildlife - that is just a happy bonus! First I noticed an increase in native flowering plants, then insects: moths and caterpillars and flies, then I noticed the birds come as well .

I've been blaming the crows for my seedling damage, but you're right - it could have been blackbirds. I definitely blame them for the losses of my berries. I did manage to protect some of my blueberries with net curtains last year and am hoping to have a more substantial net cage to protect more this year - at the moment they are looking really promising!

Veganic gardening is not as restricting as you might be assuming =). Wild life is welcome unless or until you start noticing that they develop a keener interest in the crops you plant. In that case, of course, it makes all the sense to surround the crops with fences or, what's even better, to experiment planting species which would repel the animals who are after the crops. There is no other rules in this type of gardening besides "avoid exploitation of other animals as far as possible". If you look up on the Internet, there is a good amount of well-functioning veganic farms and gardens around the globe that grow anything one can grow using conventional methods.

Fred Frank V Bur wrote:

Liu Obraztco wrote:

Anne Miller wrote:Welcome to the forum!

How does a Veganic Forest Garden differ from a Forest Garden that most folks create?

Hi Anne! Thank you for the interest and your question (:

Veganic forest garden compared to a conventional one, does not use any inputs of animal origin such as manures, bone meal, etc; nor it forcefully integrates any animals within its systems such as chickens, pigs, rabbits, etc. who would end up slaughtered. However, it welcomes any creature who willingly come by to engage with the elements of the garden: all kinds of wild birds, bugs, animals who come and go as they please. One of the principles of such a garden is to attract beneficial fauna to create symbiotic relations between the garden and other living organisms as it is done in the Nature.

I hope that answers your question. And of course, there is more information on the Internet about this type of gardening

Thank you for this topic. I would look for any veganic forest garden with any community there, small as it needs to be, or that could be there, here in America, where I would much more likely go. I would not want animals that come and go excluded, but then what will be growing there for food cannot be in crops, but what grows among other compatible plants, while enough variety of foods from different plants is desirable for much better health than there would be with other ways.

Thanks for the explanation, Frank and Liu.  That makes it clear so now I can understand.

Liu Obraztco wrote:Veganic gardening is not as restricting as you might be assuming =). Wild life is welcome unless or until you start noticing that they develop a keener interest in the crops you plant. In that case, of course, it makes all the sense to surround the crops with fences or, what's even better, to experiment planting species which would repel the animals who are after the crops. There is no other rules in this type of gardening besides "avoid exploitation of other animals as far as possible". If you look up on the Internet, there is a good amount of well-functioning veganic farms and gardens around the globe that grow anything one can grow using conventional methods.

Fred Frank V Bur wrote:

Liu Obraztco wrote:

Anne Miller wrote:Welcome to the forum!


How does a Veganic Forest Garden differ from a Forest Garden that most folks create?

Hi Anne! Thank you for the interest and your question (:

Veganic forest garden compared to a conventional one, does not use any inputs of animal origin such as manures, bone meal, etc; nor it forcefully integrates any animals within its systems such as chickens, pigs, rabbits, etc. who would end up slaughtered. However, it welcomes any creature who willingly come by to engage with the elements of the garden: all kinds of wild birds, bugs, animals who come and go as they please. One of the principles of such a garden is to attract beneficial fauna to create symbiotic relations between the garden and other living organisms as it is done in the Nature.

I hope that answers your question. And of course, there is more information on the Internet about this type of gardening :)

Thank you for this topic. I would look for any veganic forest garden with any community there, small as it needs to be, or that could be there, here in America, where I would much more likely go. I would not want animals that come and go excluded, but then what will be growing there for food cannot be in crops, but what grows among other compatible plants, while enough variety of foods from different plants is desirable for much better health than there would be with other ways.

A fence for some things makes sense. But avoiding a problem of pests is desirable, so not using crops but simply growing plants for needed food individually among other plants naturally there that are compatible would greatly help.