7 Naturally Vegan Soil Supplements to Help Your Veggies Grow

For vegans, growing vegetables at home can become challenging if choosing cruelty-free fertilizers is part of your ethos. Many fertilizer all-in-one mixes, or that ubiquitous favorite called manure, are tied up in the animal industrial complex. Blood meal, bone meal, and manure are all sourced from the factory farm system.

Luckily, loads of soil supplements are not animal-based. Like eating plant-based, it’s just a matter of seeking out an alternative and feeding the soil a little differently. And, similar to a plant-based diet, it’s the nutrients that are important, not necessarily the ingredients. Just like we don’t need steak to get protein, the soil doesn’t need manure to get nitrogen.

So, with that, it’s time to delve into how to give the soil what it needs without knowingly (or unknowingly) supporting the mistreatment and destruction of animals. These naturally vegan soil supplements will keep that old veggie patch thriving year after year.

Homespun Vegan Household Compost

Making compost at home is great on many levels, including creating a fantastic soil supplement to add to the beds every year. It doesn’t have to be anything complicated. Throw some wood chips down at the bottom of the pile. Then, for every collection of weeds or kitchen scraps added, cover it over with some shredded leaves or dried grass clippings. Do this throughout the growing season and then give it a turn or three in late winter.

Straw/Hay/Leaf Mulch

Keeping a thick layer of mulch on the garden throughout the growing season and possibly through the winter will add lots of nutrients to the soil. It’ll also help with soil friability, keeping the top few inches of the loose and light for young roots to find their way. Straw, hay, and leaves are great options, as are dried grass clippings and well-rotted wood chips.

Green Manure

Green manure is fresh green clippings left on the soil to decompose. Generally, the plants used for green manure are chosen intentionally because they are good for the soil. They might have taproots that keep it loose and soft. They might be nitrogen-fixing and provide a boost of fertility to the soil. They might add a lot of biomass to break down and become nutrients for the crops. So, green manure is a plant or group of plants grown to simply cut down so that they can decompose back into the garden.

Wood Ash (Potash)

For those with a fireplace or outdoor firepit, wood ash is a great soil amendment. While it doesn’t have nitrogen, it has a lot of phosphorus and potassium, as well as trace minerals that plants need (just like humans need trace minerals). Wood ash can be sprinkled over the garden during the winter, but be careful not to overdue as the ashes are alkaline and will need to be balanced with something acidic (like compost or green manure.

Epsom Salt

Epsom salt is inexpensive to buy in garden centers or nurseries, and it adds magnesium and sulfur to the soil. These nutrients help seeds germinate, help plants grow bushier, increase flower production, and enhance chlorophyll levels in plants. The supplement can be added to holes before seedlings or seeds go in.

Soy/Cottonseed/Flax/Alfalfa Meal

Using soy or cottonseed or flax or alfalfa meal is a lot like getting the benefits of green manure without having to grow the greenery or wait for it to decompose. The meals of these crops are nutrients in concentrate for the soil, and they are great for using early on to revitalize depleted soils. That said, these are expensive products, so ideally, they are a quick fix early in the garden’s life, but using healthy practices will make them unnecessary in the future.

Kelp/Seaweed

Adding kelp and seaweed to the garden provides a unique nutrient profile to the soil because kelp and seaweed get their nutrients from the sea. Kelp and/or seaweed bring nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus to the scene, and more importantly, they bring a host of micronutrients that might be hard to access otherwise.

With soil supplements like these in the mix, there will be no need for all of those animal industry byproducts to keep the garden fertile and thriving. Even better, over half of them are easy to do at home, and the others need only be used sparingly.

Related Content:

• How to Keep Your Garden Soil Loose and Lovely Without Tilling
• 10 Ways to Take Good Care of Your Soil
• 7 Plants That Enrich Your Garden Soil
• Understanding Soil Types for Better Gardening Success
• 7 Ways to Keep Your Garden Soil Rich in Minerals Naturally Without Buying Products!

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