Digging, tool-building, organising
The excavator is busy making trenches along the entire boundary, in order to plant intensively, Miyawaki-style. The trenches are 10 x 20 ft, and each will contain about 75 trees of four different sizes. We’re in the process of making lists of trees and contacting nurseries to order the saplings for next month. Once the monsoons begin towards the second half of June, we’ll plant.
Before we can plant, there is lots to be done. We have to get together manure, perforating material, and water retaining materials to mix with the soil before putting it back in. We are using mainly cow dung, grass, wheat stalks, and leaves, because those are most easily available now. We have started composting, but won’t have enough compost in time.
This might seem rather elementary, but making our first A-frame level is to us like making one of the first stone tools…
Fixing up the office so that it’s easy to work there for long hours is an important step towards making this land our own!
gangavan.org 