http://greenlocal.org Cultivating Life Thu, 29 Mar 2018 05:52:30 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.2.2 What Thrived in the Drought http://greenlocal.org/what-thrived-in-the-drought/ http://greenlocal.org/what-thrived-in-the-drought/#comments Sun, 13 Aug 2017 18:17:51 +0000 http://greenlocal.org/?p=356 2016-2017 was an epic year for the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. We faced the worst drought in 140 years.
So all around us, drilling for water upto a depth of even 1100 feet has become the norm.

Our motor suspended at 500 feet could not pump water any more because water tends to flow towards neighbors deep borewells.

We lost 25 out of 38 coconut trees, all the exotic trees like nutmeg, tomatillos, cloves and many fruit trees..
And banana crop as well as turmeric crop succumbed entirely. Looking at clouds with longing has become an every day affair 🙂

And it was a time to question everything.
Is our climate zone changing from tropical to semi arid?
If rain fed farming is the only way out, where is the rain?
If the pattern is going to be floods one year and droughts for the next 3 years, how do we store all the flood water to use for the non rainy day?
Can we even find or build such a large container to store the flood?

Along with questions, it was time to step up our water saving and recharge efforts – just in case it rains!

And also, it is time to reflect what species not just withstood the drought but actually thrrived under thsese seemingly harsh circumstances. And amplify those patterns.

Here is a list of perennials that tug at our hearts by not just withstanding the drought but also by thriving. They seem to have found their own source of nourishment.

Surinam Cherry
Custard Apple

Fruits
Custard Apple
Surinam Cherry
Country mango

Veggies
White Brinjal
Moringa / Drum stick
Sundakkai / Solanum torvum

Greens
Agathi / Sesbania
Moringa
Ceylon greens
Insulin keerai / Costus Pictus
Red Basale / Basella
Gonkura / Rosella

Medicinal Plants
Adathoda
Thoodhuvalai / Solanum Trilobatum
Nochi / Vitex Negundo
Tulsi

Spices
All Spice
Basil (indian)
Lemon grass

Green Manure Trees
Gliricidia
Mulberry

Hibiscus
Jasmine

Flowers
All flowering trees and among the bushes,
Hibiscus
Nandhiavattai / Moon Beam
Jasmine

And we hope this list grows with years.

 

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Scythe Workshop http://greenlocal.org/scythe-tool/ http://greenlocal.org/scythe-tool/#comments Tue, 10 Jan 2017 14:21:41 +0000 http://greenlocal.org/?p=343 I first heard of Scythe, the tool, when our friend Nandan in Palghat  got it from Scythe Works in Canada to clear grass and bushes in his farm so he can walk.

It is a manual tool and if one can get the swing right, the tool is very effective in harvesting and clearning at ten times the speed of the sicke (minimum).

The tool costs approx Rs 5500 and is door delivered.

Naturally, it is not a tool that one can use out of the box. At least a few hours of training are needed for putting the tool together and getting the swing right.

And this year, the tool has an evangelist in India in Ananth who is traveling around the country promoting this appropriate technology. And is touring South India from 3rd to 13th February with various stops at Bangalore, Mysore, Coimbatore, Shimoga, Dharwad, Bijapur and Hyderabad.

In Coimbatore area, we have 2 farms where a day long training will be held on Feb 6th and 7th separately. The two farms are 100 kns apart, one in the east near Palladam and the other in the west near Siruvani.  If you are intersted in attending, please drop a note via our contact form with Scythe Training as the subject.

They have made videos to show the assembly and usage on a dedicated YouTube channel called Vikalp. Here is a sample

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Labour of Love http://greenlocal.org/labour-of-love/ http://greenlocal.org/labour-of-love/#comments Mon, 09 Jan 2017 16:01:35 +0000 http://greenlocal.org/?p=338 Post the farmers retreat, there was some interest in getting together and working on a local farm once a month. This month’s host was MG Farms in the nearby village of Pooluvapatti. We planted some fruit saplings, Iluppai (Mahua) saplings and had a fabuilous lunch prepared by our host-friend. Also got to know couple of new farmers.  One had done a lot of research in Nannari. The next gathering will be in the nearby village of Kottaikaadu.

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Farmers Retreat http://greenlocal.org/farmers-retreat/ http://greenlocal.org/farmers-retreat/#respond Mon, 09 Jan 2017 08:25:24 +0000 http://greenlocal.org/?p=327 This year’s retreat of natural farmers in Coimbatore, Pollachi and Attapadi area was facilitated by Nipun Mehta of ServiceSpace.  It was nice to share space with 25 plus friends for a day of in the humble community center here. A few friends had come from out of town to join us.

In the morning session, which started after 30 minutes of silence, everyone shared what helped him or her, sometimes unexpectedly, to make a radical shift into his or her current way of life. This session was to recognize the fact that besides our own work, we are all products of multiple causes, some in their original guise and some in disguise but all were/are blessings guiding us in the right direction. We may have no visibility of or control over these causes, yet there is “way” to embrace these causes, pleasant and unpleasant, to keep us on our path.  This way is to fully align ourselves with three forces – our highest values, the laws of nature and the light in one another.

We broke for a long lunch. A friend launched home made gourmet organic whole wheat bread by offering these sandwiches as a gift and they were enjoyed by all.

In the afternoon session, we explored what is synergy. Synergy is an emergent phenomenon in which a chain of a certain type is stronger than the sum of the strengths of all its links, including its weakest links.

There was a common desire to renew our labour of love experiment of working on a different farm each month for a day.

In the evening, it warmed our hearts to watch everyone from my Dad who is 76 to all the kids doing Three-Steps-and-a-Bow for Peace. The rough road did not dampen the spirits. Here is a link that refers to the original pilgrimage where two buddhist monks did Three Steps and a Bow for 800 miles.

We closed with circle of gratitude and a beautiful peace prayer.

A super special thanks for Nipun for squeezing in a day in his crazy busy schedule to be with us. As our synergetic activities emerge, we are sure to find multiple ways to connect ourselves (the local community) with ServiceSpace, the ecosystem that Nipun and countless other volunteers have nurtured over almost two decades to bring stillness and smiles.

Much gratitude to the collective that organized to organize so effortlessly. Rooting ourselves in the collective enriches our life in countless ways and this day was also a witness to that.

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Mission, Vision and Fancy Footwork http://greenlocal.org/mission-vision-and-fancy-footwork/ http://greenlocal.org/mission-vision-and-fancy-footwork/#comments Wed, 30 Mar 2016 05:57:27 +0000 http://greenlocal.org/?p=320 Recently, a friend asked me what my mission was with respect to the farm. Had never thought about it in that way. Usually, the “mission statement’ comes up at the start of an endeavor. I had the advantage of being asked this seven years after living on the farm. I mentally looked back at what we have advocated with respect to enriching a farm and the key words that came up were trees and perennials.

I quickly blurted out that our current mission is to produce, preserve and distribute seeds, cuttings and saplings of 5 trees.

  1. Papaya
  2. Moringa
  3. Agathi / Sesbania
  4. Castor
  5. Gliricidia

Of these the first 3 provide excellent nutrition for humans and birds and all 5 trees produce rich food for the soil.  Insects love eating castor leaves and humans can consume oil extracted from its seeds.  Gliricida provides cheap and easy chop and drop nitrogen for the soil.  Moring and Agathi are legumes that fix nitrogen and purify water. Papaya adds leaf matter and sugar at high frequency for micro organisms to feast on. Castor breaks up the soil where nothing else can grow and brings water table up through its long roots that other surrounding plants can borrow.

So far, the farm has produced more than 10,000 seeds of moringa, 5000 seeds of castor , 2000 cuttings of gliricidia, hundreds of papaya saplings and thousands of papaya seeds for gifting. We are low on Agathi seed propagation and distribution but planning to ramp this up.

They need to be planted just once.  They will live for long and/or self propagate. With have a lifetime supply of produce, you can make your mission statement too!

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Green Local Online Store http://greenlocal.org/green-local-online-store/ http://greenlocal.org/green-local-online-store/#respond Thu, 18 Feb 2016 12:16:54 +0000 http://greenlocal.org/?p=308 pepper1

Sulins is a community as well as a commerce platform to promote Sustainable Living in India.

A friend asked us to list our non perishable products like turmeric and pepper on this platform.

And so we have a little online store.
[ http://greenlocal.sulins.org/ ]
We ship anywhere in India that the postal system can reach.

The initial response has been good and the connections are deeper than what a simple transaction can bring.

Sulins also have some good content on their blog

 

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A Newsletter called Seeds+Transformation http://greenlocal.org/a-newsletter-called-seedstransformation/ http://greenlocal.org/a-newsletter-called-seedstransformation/#respond Mon, 04 Jan 2016 16:33:49 +0000 http://greenlocal.org/?p=302 light-through-treesHappy New Year!

Our good friend Nipun from ServiceSpace asked us to edit a monthly newsletter on stories related to sustainability. It is called Seeds+Transformation and it is sent out at the beginning of each month. The last 12 issues are archived here

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Flowers from the Farm http://greenlocal.org/flowers-from-the-farm/ http://greenlocal.org/flowers-from-the-farm/#comments Wed, 18 Feb 2015 17:20:37 +0000 http://greenlocal.org/?p=284 Pictures of a few flowers from the past season

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Hoogle Kulture: Onions http://greenlocal.org/hoogle-kulture-onions/ http://greenlocal.org/hoogle-kulture-onions/#respond Wed, 02 Jul 2014 08:23:15 +0000 http://greenlocal.org/?p=126 OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA We discovered Hooglekulture couple of years back and have been fascinated by its possibilities. According to one definition, “Hugelkultur is nothing more than making raised garden beds filled with rotten wood.” These are our second and third sets of HK beds.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

 

 

We did not want to wait for the decomposing of the wood before planting and planted 7 kilos of small onions (shallots) on it. Since we did not want to wait, we are watering it everyday – what an irony as HK is meant to eliminate daily irrigation.

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Turmeric of the Year http://greenlocal.org/turmeric-of-the-year/ http://greenlocal.org/turmeric-of-the-year/#comments Thu, 20 Mar 2014 15:48:22 +0000 http://greenlocal.org/?p=258 Turmeric is a popular crop in our area grown from May to Feb. The rhizome, or underground stem, is harvested after 10 months. The variety we grow is called “Erode Turmeric”, Erode being the name of a district famous for turmeric cultivation and trade.

As we set out with the long and thin bladed hoe, the weather was cool, trees were in bloom and the birds were singing. And we had three good showers that made it even more pleasant.  But the digging got long drawn with mushy soil, sticky tools and clumps of clay that came up with the rhizomes. But we’ve learnt not to complain about rains..at least, not too much.

The yield was not uniform though all the plants looked healthy.   From quarter acre we got about 700 kgs.  Our last year’s yield from a similar area was just over a ton. Overall, it is a modest harvest compared to what other farmers around us have harvested as well. Slideshow:

 

 

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