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I've grown much of my own veg for years. Purely as a hobby and not commercially. Personally I use either my own compost which is hedgecuttings, leaves and grass, or a nettle fertiliser. I make that by scything loads of nettles and pouring water on them. It stinks to high heaven on it's way to being ready to use though.
I'm sure some of the Plantsmen on here would have some knowledge of the commercially available fertilisers.
I can see that bone meal would not be considered appropriate, but manure cannot be particularly objectionable it’s something that ends up spread about naturally.
we use a Bokashi bin as part of our food waste re cycle to compost -- we put meat, bones and dairy products in it to 'pickle' then after a period of weeks add it to a tumbling composter then eother compost bins or on beds as mulch.
We have lots of chicken bones and such sticking out of the veg beds -- not sure vegans would approve at all :)
veganism has gone a bit far IMO
basically that states you cant grow a salad or vegetable in a natural soil medium.
soil is essentially dead matter -- plenty is animal excriment , or insect /animal body decomposition - a purist vegan will need to go fully hydroponic which kind of destroys the whole 'earth mother' part of veganism
Dan i do not know much about hydroponic growing what do they use for the food addative
I dont know much about it either but you would either buy or make your own liquid feed and introduce to your hydroponic set up -- either part soil based or zero soil based.
Aqua ponics uses the combination of a hydroponic growing system combined with a fish tank, the fish are fed - they in turn fertilize the water and bottom of the tank -- the fertilzer from them is pumped into the hydroponic growing area to feed the veg.
You can then eat excess fish once their numbers increase. I think theres a huge amount of water monitoring to avoid excess build up of nutrients etc.
Urban hydroponic LED lit growing 'warehouses' appear to be pretty close to widescale use - its envisaged all main super market hubs will have a growing warehouses near by to create cheap and fresh articificially grown produce 24/7 all year long.
Due to the developments in hydro ponic and lighting these buildings have grow beds stacked on top of each other -- massive growing areas per sq m
Whether these salads and vegs have the same nutritional qualities as something grown naturally outdoors is yet to be seen - but then any salad is probably better than no salad.
When you grow your own you realise how important soil is -- and most of whats on sale in the supermarkets these days doesnt have half the nutritional qualities they used to have.
Having said that vegans won’t appreciate bonemeal under their veg, I watched BBC Countryfile on the telly the other night reporting from a vineyard that uses a Biodynamic growing method that requires cow horns as part of the regime.
https://vinepair.com/articles/biodynamic-wine-explained/
As that article states -- Biodynamics came before organic -- the organic concept was developed from biodynamic by people and became more popular mainly due to there being a lot of wacky concepts in biodynamic, such as lunar planting and burying animal parts.
Biodynamic seems to have gained a lot of popularity recently probably mainly due to the use of bio fertilzers and a more in depth attitude to how you create your own natural products to treat specific soil and plant issues. Also its a key part of much permiculture and regenerative agriculture practices which in some areas is becoming quite viable due to the loss of soil structure and quality from industrial farming practises.
Jairo Restrepo is quite an interesting figure in this field.