Category Archives: team

Monsoon harvest

We are thrilled to be harvesting our lovely organic monsoon veggies! We have kilos of kaddu (pumpkin), bhindi (okra), torai (ridge gourd), beans, and karela (bitter gourd). We are happily consuming them, but also trying to figure out how to save some for future months… The most amazing thing to us is how LARGE andContinue reading “Monsoon harvest”

Planting rice!

We have started the ‘ropai’: transferring the rice seedlings from the nursery bed to the rice field. The first field we prepared didn’t work, because the soil was too sandy and the water kept draining out. RIce needs standing water. So, we got another field ready: cutting the grass and ploughing, and finally began theContinue reading “Planting rice!”

Bamboo, bridges, and snakes

It’s been a couple of weeks since our last update, because of some unexpected events. But we are back. We’ve had over ten days of sunshine, which meant extremely hot, humid, unpleasant weather, but also that we have been busy. First of all, we decided that we need to get across the nala, rain orContinue reading “Bamboo, bridges, and snakes”

One day in the season of rain

Our work continues in the gaps between the thunderstorms. Below: preparing the nursery for rice last week and the rice emerging; children inspecting mushrooms and earthworms while Rumi snoozes in the brief moments of sunshine. Semal plants emerge after a long hibernation and the seed office is inspected by the dogs as new seeds areContinue reading “One day in the season of rain”

Whut?!

But….why?? Rain? Now?? Seriously??! We are literally waiting for the sun. We have been getting tractors and tractors of aged cowdung, and picking up piles and piles of leaves, and have bought quintals and quintals of straw. We have enough to start filling the trenches with a mixture of mud, straw, leaves, and compost, andContinue reading “Whut?!”

Hello, babies!

The two things we have been working on for the past few days are seeds and trenches. Re: the latter, we are in the process of buying and gathering together massive amounts of straw, leaves, and cowdung, and trying to distribute them in piles all around our site. It’s a lot of manual labour, andContinue reading “Hello, babies!”

Seeds and cuttings!

We have started working on our seedlings. We will be able to afford to buy about 2000 plants from the nursery. Those will be our specialty fruit/nut/spice trees and trees that aren’t available easily in the vicinity. But all the others – over 4000 – will have to be added over the monsoon and followingContinue reading “Seeds and cuttings!”

More rain?!

There is no cyclone now, and my weather app shows sun. Then why this sudden downpour? All work has stopped again. The women who came to cut grass are sheltering in the office and snacking. The mud is squelchy and eager to trap anyone or anything who dares set foot on it. Yesterday was theContinue reading “More rain?!”