Water = Possibilities!

The big event has happened, finally... We have a lakh litres of water!

At our land near Panchgani, finding water in summers was always an issue... our handpump, which sustains the 100-odd saplings, has water only from July to March.

This summer, we dug a pond and waterproofed it. Here's how it looked like just before the monsoons hit.

I'm yet to take a picture of the filled up pond, but am informed that it's filled up to capacity.

Another change in the last few months: We closed up the porch around the farmhouse... it was just too windy to enjoy in most months of the year. It looks like this now..

The water and the shelter will make more possible ... more staying there, more saplings, maybe a veggie patch.

I wonder if we've ever written on this blog about some farmland we share with some friends. Next week, we're packing our stuff (including our baby) and heading to Panchgani, a small hill town about 100 km away from Pune. We plan to stay on the land, which has no electricity, but has some water and a small room for shelter. During our stay there (Dec 4 to 13), we'll experience what it is to live, sleep, cook, bathe and work on a farm. So far, we've only been visiting it for a few hours at a time. We also hope to do work like digging trenches, making vegetable beds etc.

We're inviting people with enthusiasm, who are OK with roughing it out, to come and experience this, and help us work there. About 7 others have responded (we had initially circulated this invitation only to known friends). We have place for some more... so opening this up to people we may not know via this blog. If you would like to be part of this, do write back to us at shirishkher@yahoo.co.in

More details below...

"Working with Hands and Heart" : Meet to restore eroded land December 4-13, 2012 at Panchgani near Pune.

 

Hello all,

We are a group of friends who own a 2.5 acre piece of land near Panchgani town, 100 km from Pune in Maharashtra, India. There's a nice view of the valley below and hills beyond that. Occasionally, a hare, langurs and eagles come here. We always feel rejuvenated whenever we visit this place. We purchased this land so we could go and live there and experiment with things like renewable energy, water conservation, farming organically, community living while experimenting with pottery, education in the outdoors etc. Now that some basics are in place (a room, a borewell-handpump for water and a fence), we would like to start developing this place. For us, 'developing' has a modest meaning ... grow trees and shrubs, restore soil fertility, bring back small animals - in essence make it a 'green' paradise. This monsoon, we've planted bamboo, nirgudi and drumstick, and it is encouraging to see almost all of them alive, 2 months after planting, as we write this in October 2012.

 

This land is almost totally barren right now. It is very windy here, which stunts the growth of plants. There is also very little topsoil due to exposure to sun, wind and heavy rain over the years.... the land is strewn with rocks.So greening the place will take effort and plenty of time too. 

 

At first glance, work seems to involve some of this:

- Dig trenches, to recharge groundwater and prevent topsoil runoff.

- Plant more saplings

- Create temporary shelter for saplings (its a very windy location)

- For irrigation, think of a good arrangement (surface channels? Pipe? )

- Rearrange boulders, or re-contour land to create places to sit and relax.

- Create a windbreak to shelter us while we work (The bamboos planted as a windbreak will take time to become effective)

- Start a composting pit

- Do something creative and fun with the rocks and boulders which dot the land

- Start vegetable beds

- And there's planning work too ... deciding where to plant, what to plant, fetching saplings and digging tools, running around for miscellaneous stuff.

 

There must be other things that can be done, which we haven't thought of ....

 

 

We think it would be so much more fun if we had more people to help us with this. Help with ideas, help with the physical work. This December, we are happy to invite anyone willing to visit Panchgani, stay there at least a few days, and help. Entire families are welcome, so are individuals who like working with hands and don't mind the sun for a few hours every day. We would like to accommodate upto 15 people this time.

 

We're thinking of a day-schedule which involves about 4 to 5 hours of physical work spread out over a day. But we're not too particular about everyone working for a fixed number of hours... we are quite happy to accommodate people who may wish to work more or less than this. A typical day may look something like this... We could work on the land for a while starting at dawn. Then have breakfast at the neighbouring farmer's home or cook it ourselves, and rest a bit. Work a little more, then have lunch. In the afternoons, we could chat, teach or learn something or catch a nap. After an evening cup of tea, we could work a bit more till the sunlight fades. After sunset, we could sit around our makeshift kitchen fire, make music, or visit the market. And everyday need not, (and will not) be the same... one could go hiking in the nearby hills one morning. We would appreciate it if everyone shares in work like cooking, making tea for everyone, visiting the market to buy essentials, helping keep the place clean, digging compost toilets, getting organic matter for making soil and mulching etc. The idea is to have a community, which lives and learns together for a few days.

 

Expenses on food, hired bedding etc may be shared amongst everyone who stays. We may be able to suggest a per-day contribution number closer to December, but people are free to pay more or less than this as per their will and ability.

 

We will be happy to hear from people who wish to join us this December. The dates are Dec 4th to 13th, 2012. You are welcome to join any time, although we request you to stay at least 5 days ... this way you may see some work through to completion. If you make a short visit, you may feel that you've barely got the hang of what is to be done, and started doing it, and its time to go back!

 

More details:

To reach the destination, Khingar village, 4 km from Panchgani hill town, off the Mumbai - Pune- Bangalore highway (NH4):

From Mumbai: Buses to Mahabaleshwar go via Panchgani

From Bangalore: Buses to Pune/Mumbai pass via Surur, where one disembarks. Then take local bus to Panchgani (1 hour journey).

 

Access to the land is through a mud path from the tar road, about 5 minutes walk away. Any vehicles need to be beside the tar road.

 

In December, day temperatures are around 20 degrees, and the sun is quite strong (there's no fog here in winters). Night temperatures can be 10 degrees celsius or even lower... the wind makes it feel even colder, so warm clothing and cap are advisable.

 

You can either bring your own bedding  (sleeping bag/ mattress/ blanket) or we will find a place you can hire it from.  Shelter on the land will be basic ... just a hard floor on which reed mats can be spread (people could also choose to stay in Panchgani town, 4 km away. It will be more comfortable, but less fun!)  Depending on how many people are coming, we could build an additional temporary shelter too or people could bring along their tents and sleeping bags. And there's always the option of sleeping under the stars.

 

Food: We will either cook it ourselves or eat at our neighbouring farmer's home ... we would like to restrict it to simple vegetarian fare.

 

We've built a small bathroom. For a bath, groundwater can be fetched in buckets from the nearby handpump. There's no electric or other heater, so warm water for a bath will be difficult to arrange.

 

There's an Indian style toilet too .. a bucket and mug to go with it (no push button flush!). We could dig additional pits in the ground too, for a dry-composting toilet... will make good manure for the next season!

 

Thank you.

Shirish, Vanaja and baby Bharat; Kapil and Rajni; Shantanu, Aditi and Meghan; Mukul and Anagha

Down but not out

A little more than a year-and-a-half since our last post.....we feel a bit guilty about this. Its almost as if coming out of the dressing room on to the stage in elaborate make-up and gear - you feel kinda funny wondering what people out there must be thinking.

Well....a lot of things have happened in the garden of our lives. For one, we now have a tiny (actually not so tiny now) human being crawling and cruising around in our home. As you can imagine most of our gardening efforts have been directed towards bringing to life and then nurturing this little creature.

At the same time, we have been a tad bit sad that we had to ignore our terrace garden, though unintentionally. But finally Shirish decided to shake things up, tighten his belt and put an extra effort into reviving the garden. So he went about getting some 'shen-khath' (cow-dung manure) from a cow-shed nearby and some soil from our land in Panchgani. He also decided to line all our crates with tarpaulin sheets (with holes pierced in them for water drainage) since the gap between the floor-boards had widened due to the warping of wood. This was causing a lot of soil-loss. And since the monsoons were almost upon us, this was a necessary measure. We then planted Bhindi or Okra in one of the crates - this year we decided to plant a lot of it to fill one crate so that we would get sufficient harvest at one time for it to be usable. We also planted cucumber, beans, tomatoes and bottle gourd. The bhindi did very well this year and we got continuous yields for about 2 months - really tender okra which cooked so easily. However, the tomatoes, beans and the bottle gourd did not sprout at all - disappointing! The cucumber sprouted and took a while to grow, but finally it did and we also got a few cucumbers - not a whole lot though.But as always, we got a few pleasant surprises. We got a huge ash gourd, though we did not plant it. 

We had planted some of our potatoes that had sprouted and they grew into healthy looking plants. But when we pulled them out this week, we found just 1 potato in each plant - a little disappointing again! Our biggest surprise though was a pineapple that we had planted 2 years back. It finally yielded a small but really sweet and juicy pineapple.







 We now also have 3-4 creepers of bitter gourd that came up on their own and are yielding quite a regular supply.


One of our ignored plants was the colocasia (arbi in hindi) - one of the varieties of which we were not sure whether it was edible. We had received mixed opinions from different people, basically leaving us confused. We finally did some internet search and then decided to try it out for ourselves and so we made 'alu wadi' using the colocasia leaves - this is a maharashtrian snack with layers of gram flour in-between the leaves rolled-up and steamed. Came out quite tasty the first time - so we have one more item on our terrace that we can eat now.

A couple of mustard plants had sprouted on their own in some of the pots and they have yielded about a cup-ful of mustard seeds. These ones really pop with a vengeance.

So looks like after a year-long hiatus our terrace garden is getting back to form. We are already planning our next planting for the post-monsoon season. Hopefully we will get around to getting the seeds and planting them before it is too late....and hope to update here soon too. 

Sundaikkai/ Turkey Berry/ Pea Aubergine.........

What a delight it was to discover this lovely veggie - growing right under our noses (or rather right above our heads, since it is on our terrace), and that too just when Shirish was getting ready to chop it right off - why? ask him...some logic about, "we don't know what it is and it is unnecessarily occupying space". Thankfully, I intervened and requested an extension of time for a few more days - I wanted to photograph it and send it to a city farming group to ask if anyone knew why this particular brinjal plant was producing berries instead of brinjals.

This sunday we finally managed to take that pic and send it across - and before the day was over, we were overjoyed to find we were growing turkey berry. This is called Sundaikkai is Tamil and is an item found in its buttermilk-dipped sun-dried form (called vathal) in traditional households , which is then fried in ghee and had as a crunchy slightly bitter accompaniment to either curd rice or just the whole meal. We have been using the store-bought sun-dried version too for quite a while. However, this was the first time we have laid our eyes on the green berry, we sliced one open and found it is filled with tiny brinjal-like seeds underneath the thin outer skin.

Sundaikkai puli kootu

Pachai Sundaikkai mor kuzhambu

Soon we were cruising the web to download some of those delectable recipes using this berry (or should i say brinjal?) and needless to say enjoying them in mor kuzhambu (south indian form of kadhi) and kootu (wet subji with tamarind and lentils) forms in our next meal.



This berry supposedly has medicinal properties - helps with digestive disorders, keeps away coughs and colds etc...check out the wiki link for more info. I am hoping my tummy is magically set right after consuming all those sundaikkais. ;-)

I also found out that these brinjals are specifically used in Thai cuisine - esp. the characteristic green and yellow curries.

Characteristically they are supposed to be a bit bitter, however, we could hardly detect any bitterness in our berries. All the better for us, eh!

Look at how many we managed to collect from 2 such plants, in addition to the tomatoes and those 7 peas (he he!).

An interesting comment from the city farming group was "We have such amazing varieties of Brinjal with us and yet why are we running after the BT Brinjal!". Surely worth thinking about.

New look garden

Our terrace is a cleaner, more spacious space now, with our garden getting a new look thanks to the crates we got made. All our earlier beds (except one in the corner) have been shifted to the crates. And suddenly we realised that our garden had shrunk - maybe it would be more manageable now - we'll get to know soon.

In filling the crates, we have done a few things differently in the different crates.
In the first few that Shirish filled, he simply started filling it with some coarse matter like coconut shells, coconut fibre, sugarcane bagasse, twigs and the like followed by some dry leaves, some compost and then topped with the soil (actually composted veggie matter +soil) from our earlier beds on the floor. In some cases, there were plants growing well in the beds and so these had to be transplanted gingerly with as much of the root ball intact. A delicate task, done patiently by Shirish.

By the time we reached our 3rd, 4th crate, we realised that not lining the crates from inside with something non-permeable may result in a lot of soil and water waste - since there ware sufficient gaps between the planks in the crates. This would not serve one of our objectives of moving to the crates - which was to prevent soil loss during monsoons. Further, the crates would deteriorate faster, as they were in direct contact with the soil and the organisms in them. So now we started with a layer of old tarp or plastic sheets that we had lying around the house - these were not in pristine condition, but we figured that would help in drainage of excess water yet preventing too much soil loss. But we weren't extra careful about covering every inch of the crate and the sides - sometimes the plastic covered only the bottom, sometimes the bottom and the length sides but left out the width sides.

After 4-5 more crates were filled, we again stopped to think - we just don't seem to be able to think when we are 'doing' - they always seem to alternate :-). We observed that even the second method was resulting in lot of water and soil loss and though some parts of the crates were protected, there were others which were not. So now we decided to be more thorough and started overlapping sheets of used plastic (we still didn't go for brand-new store-bought thick tarpaulin sheets as suggested by Niranjan, as this just did not seem like an eco-friendly option) in a manner we thought was sufficient to minimise water and soil loss at the same time the overlaps will provide enough outlet for the excess water. This way the crate-beds would remain moist longer, reducing the need for watering too often.

I think we are happy with the last few crates filled and are waiting for the next chance to rectify the mistakes in the first few crates.  (Since there are things growing in them, we will wait before the next planting season, just before the monsoons, to effect the changes). We have infact planted veggie seeds in almost all the crates now and are beginning to see things sprout.

In over a month of use, we have also seen the wood of the crates warp due to sun and water exposure, thus increasing the gaps all over. The moveability and the lightness is a definite advantage, but we continue to ponder about better/ cheaper and at the same time eco-friendly options (these crates cost us about Rs. 1200 each, which does seem on the higher side). All suggestions welcome....

Winter cool...a cool winter

The winter has been nice and cool this time around - and for a change we are not envying our brethren in the north of the country. Now even we got to flaunt our woollies.

The cool winter seems to have agreed with the plants too. Of course, it was a good time to be doing changes - shifting the beds into our new crates and transplanting all the growing stuff into their new homes - 'cos the weather must have lessened the shock on the plants. We even transplanted some plants bearing fruits, and even they did not protest too much.


Its definitely been the fruiting season - all our tomato plants have been loaded with beautiful round darlings - lots of green tomatoes for our favourite 'rasavangy' subji - we even took a bunch to chennai and made Amma do the honours to them. A yummy tasty meal for 4. And then we came back after 10 days to find a whole lot of red ripe tomatoes - juicy and attractive - we are still feasting on soups, rasams and tomato-gravies. There were atleast 3 different kinds of tomatoes at one point - the slightly oval (longish) ones you normally find in the market these days, the round but squat ones a.k.a 'naattu-thakkali' which are really tart and great for rasams and finally the small round cherry tomatoes.

The green tomatoes along with the chopped sponge gourds and the laal maath/ lal bhaji

And then there was that lone cabbage sapling, which survived beyond all odds and finally developed a nice little cabbage after being transplanted into a crate.

One of our older vines finally showed its true colors and produced 4 cute little sponge gourds - promptly turned into tasty 'thuvaiyal' to go with hot rice. After a rather long wait, our brinjal plant produced a purple-and-white-striped beauty - and a double conjoined one at that - this one made a great 'thaan' in the sambar.

The sponge gourds on the vine

Double Delight

Our baby papaya tree is a baby no-more - it is already producing baby papayas - we are so looking forward to these :-))

The bumper harvest of this winter, however, has undoubtedly been the mango-ginger - almost 2 kgs - here are the pics of shirish harvesting them - behold and feel the thrill of this harvest - its just beyond words.























For a while, our terrace garden got really populated, as we had to move all our pots from our balconies to the terrace too. This was because we were going to be away for almost 2 weeks and this way we could ask our watchman to water all our babies. See how lovely they look close to each other and sharing the warmth and happiness - i wonder if they also compare notes on their lives, health and well-being like long lost relatives meeting at a wedding (wink!).

The crates finally get their due...

This is a long overdue post, thanks totally to my laziness explained as being too busy to get time to do a spot of writing. Busy doing what, u might want to ask - that's harder to explain than trying to even remember what other things were occupying my attention. Life has this strange way of taking over, nah!

So, yeah, the seasons have changed since the last post and so has our garden drastically. The monsoon finally ended in november and gave way to a nice and cold winter. Just around the time the seasons were changing, we decided to do a face-lift to our garden too. So far our garden had been directly on the floor tiles,  but combined with the extended monsoon this time, it led to increased seepage downstairs in our home. A friend Niranjan came to our rescue when we were wondering what to do. He along with his partner, George had designed a crate from packing wood to be used as a planter. We quickly seized on this opportunity and asked Niranjan if he could design and make many such crates for us as per our requirements. He readily agreed and even offered us the use of one of the crates already lying with him. (pic in the last post). After trying it out for a short while, we could come up with the improvements we would need - like wheels at the base to make the whole thing movable and poles on the sides for creepers to climb on. Soon enough, he had 10 more crates ready and that too a ckd (completely knock down, for those averse to abbreviations) version.

Here are the pics of the assembly team in process:

The 'Bluewiss' DIY manual - really neat stuff

The disassembled crate -this is just the base and the sides
on the width side - the rest is neatly tucked on top of the base

Now u see the sides have gone up becoming a
nice 1.5ft. deep box - the right depth for veggies

Here u see the poles going up

Close-up of the joint-neat hinges and screw-based
stuff - no nasty rusty nails sticking out

3 of the final assembled crates - don't they look cool!

                                            

So now it was upto us to do some serious hard work and shift all our beds into the crates - that was really gonna require us to get off our back sides - you'll see how that went! :-)