Let us feel proud that we have chosen a barren land...

I am not Martin Luther or M K Gandhi. But I can deliver a simple lecture which can motivate at-least two persons. And I did...

Dear Subbu:

I know that you are sad because there is no water. Apparently all activities have stopped and you are constantly thinking only about water. Your mind is not working..

First of all feel proud that we have chosen a barren land, a dry land, a rain-shadow region to be developed into a green patch. And we are already doing that.  It is no big deal to do agriculture in a land where there is plenty of water supplied from a dam, a river or a canal and being pumped from a tube-well through free electricity.

That is no big deal !. That is not agriculture. That is only business. For such people who have all facilities are only abusing their land. They are growing only commercial crops over there with poisonous chemicals like insecticides, herbicides and various salts to get more yield and are exporting it to far off countries.  I heard someone near Madurai is growing genetically modified cucumber brought from Israel which is not palatable to humans. He is exporting them. That is harmful to local ecosystem.

Be proud that our district which is so backward in agriculture compared to other northern districts has been in existence for thousands of years.  There were great leaders and patriots from this region. Our ancestors hail from this region.  How did they survive? What did they do without water ? There is hardly two months of rain here.

Bank on me. I have noticed through the window in my extensive air travel across India, that we have more rain-fed regions like our farm than well irrigated lands from rivers. Entire India is having agriculture activities which are dependent only on rain. For hundreds of years, everything was going smooth. The minute people started cultivating commercial crops out of greediness like cotton, the suicides have started. Poverty has started. I have seen that people who are struck to traditional farming have survived. They have not made that much money. Money is not important. Well-Being is very important. That is available in many places.

Therefore let us copy from them. Let us grow Bajra, millet's, kodugu, finer millet and other drought resistant varieties. Let us use our intelligence, squeeze our brain and find out solutions. That is why we are here.

Subbu, there is actually more water. Let us face it straight. I am not going to dig any more well. we are not going to puncture once more for another bore-well. This is the water and it is pumped through wind.  That is it. Let us accept the limitation. Lets move ON.

I guess we are wasting water. We should not have done canal irrigation to Sweet potato and Banana. We are pouring water to casurina trees on the fence. There is no irrigation required for the fence trees. Only moisture is enough. By pouring water on soil, expecting it to spread is not going to happen. Even if you leave a draining hose pipe overnight on the ground, only one patch of round shape will be wet in the morning. Water would have seeped into the soil, rather than spreading far and wide. Then why are we irrigating.?

Let us adopt drip irrigation. It is a good technology. We must quickly bring it to the farm. We will not ask anyone to set it up. We are not going to use filters which will require pumping. We are not going to pump. we will use gravitational force.   We will do it ourselves.  We have to make funny connections, criss crosses and bring water to all corners. Let us buy bundles of pipes and connectors right away and start.  There are only two connectors. 'T' junction and 'connectors'. There will be terminators. They are cheap. Don't worry.

You will be surprised for entire fence, we can have few pipes with punctured holes running around. No more hassle of irrigating with hose pipes like in a fire fighting. Let us feed water every day little by little instead of pouring the water in the channel. We will have water surplus at the end left in the tank. Let us put vegetables near the wind tower and connect with dripping pipes. Let us grow all kinds of vegetables. No more wastage of water.  This was my dream when I started. Let us implement the same now.

We will be a model farmer. People from all drought areas will come to see our farm. No electricity, no water, people are growing bananas, brinjal, greens, fruits, nuts and flowers. Sooner or later a cow also will come. Then more cows will come. Then we will not have space left to accommodate them. Let us prepare ourselves for that.

Subbu was happy after hearing this.  he is going to purchase some Hay for future as harvesting is ON in the neighborhood.

First priority was to construct the resting shade. As restriction on transporting of stone pillars would have eased, he will start that work. Next week we are expecting some visitors to the farm. We need to construct this before that.  currently team is using the green shade net for resting. But that will be a hod-house. we need complete covered roofing to wade through the hot summer.

The second priority would be to experiment on drip irrigation low cost, customer made. That is the way to go. Subbu will go to Tirunelveli town and purchase entire kit of plastic pipes and connectors.

Hot Summer Begins - Draught like Climate already

Well,  all things put aside.  First things first.  No water.  Water bodies are getting dry.

We have the burden of watering Banana and casurina trees to keep them alive.  Agriculture is not about cultivation.  That is the last thing.   It is mostly about sustaining life forms that you have chosen to bring up.  There is only 'n' variables that you can control.  Water is the primary and most important source for agriculture that is not in our control.  But water is everything.

And it is not there.

Subbu has decided to pump some water from neighboring well that is over 100 mts far.  This is mostly as a precaution to recharge the tanks.  Currently the wind speed is very low.  Only a 1000 liter is hardly getting filled and we need 2000 ltrs per day to sustain the vegetation.

 He has the hose pipes (good planning) and the kerosene engine.  Well there is one feet of water in the rain water pond surviving the fishes.  It the fishes starts to get visible, the birds will take them away. Good that we had invested in the Kerosene engine and hose pipes ! for such emergencies.

The Week Ahead on 20th Feb, 2015

We can't keep celebrating success or failure for long.  Should keep moving ON.

I need to create more engagement and bring energy after a small failure. few days back Subbu had harvested sweet potato and it was a disappointment.

Not really.  Perhaps.

1.  First asked Subbu to cover the plot of land with palm leaves which he promptly did. The lesson No. 1 in natural farming is that you keep the soil covered from hot sun. We did.  Sun is very hot now.

2. Decided to go for Brinjal. I have ordered Brinjal seeds from a friend Paramez. Out of the following varities, myself and subbu have selected the once in bold. These are appealing to the native people here.  All are native varities.  The white brinjal is costly.  Once the seeds are obtained, we need to grow them in polythene bags in the new shadenet.

1. பச்சை கத்திரி
2. வரி கத்திரி
3. திண்டுக்கல் ஊதா கத்தரி
4. மணப்பாறை கத்தரி
5. வெள்ளை கத்தரி
6. கும்கோணம் குண்டு கத்திரி
7. பவானி கத்திரி

3. After chasing Vettiver Vincent for long time, I thanked and said good bye to him. He is unable to send vettiver for me.  Amids his busy schedule he is unable to visit his own farm which is hardly 50 Kms from his work for months togather.

4. I found a new source Mr. Senthil Vel, near Erode. He promptly responded my requested.  At Rs. 3.5/- per root, I am purchasing 500 Nos today.  It will reach near my farm by tomorrow through KPN travels.  Good going so far..... I asked Subbu to keep in shade net for few days and then plant around the rain water catchment pond.  He was doubting if we should actually go for it now.  But I am going to force my way. Enough of waiting. I cannot wait till next rainy season.  Vettiver I heared can withstand draught. Only in the beginning we have to take more care.

5. Need to purchase polybags for nursary. I am searching internet for suppliers. Hopefully I will place order for 500 small and 500 medium size black polythene bags.  This will be my first professional setup towards growing own saplings from seeds.  hereafter for want of water, I need to use more of shade.

6.  Two fishes have been lost yesterday.  Subbu told they had left two large and two small fish on the large cement tank which has just 1 feet of water.  Till 6 PM everything was ok. Once they retired, some large bird (eagle) was seen scooping the fish from the tank. There is no resting place there. It should have descended and ascended in flight.  While Subbu was sounding disappointed and angry, i asked him to take photos next time for me.
  
*****

First Sweet Potato Harvest is a Flop !

"Sir, we got only 2.5 bags of Sweet Potato, I was expecting 4 to 5 bags."  Subbu was disappointed.

So net net, from around 16 cents, we have got 2.5 bags. that is equivalent to 170 KG.  Each KG of sweet potato was sold at 10/-.  It seems the going rate at the market was only 6/-. but this was of good quality (organic) and shining.  Hence it fetched Rs.10/-.  That is great.

I wasn't surprised hearing this.  For me the complete learning experience would include failure and not success. While I was a bit disappointed that I will not be able to pay bonus or anything to anyone, I was only happy that things did not work out. This will give ample of opportunity to introspect and improve.

"Don't worry, what could be the reason ? " I asked.

"Sir the ground is like rock solid."  I understood, our earth is like the hardened cement bag. Too touch for the tubers to swell.  Earlier also even when you want to punch a hole using earth auguer, we have seen it just rotating not penetrating. We had to use manual crowbar.

"What else?"  "I have employed tracktor only as it would be waste of money to put on labours. I also asked the pickup lorry to come here. I am not going to Tirunelveli for this small quantity."  It doesnot make sense to hire a private vehicle for this. Let us go with the wind.  There are someone who pickup the produce from different farms and go to market.

The following are learnings from this lesson;
a) We should attempt tubers only on loose soil.
b) Plenty of water was required. It is not enough to keep the plants green.
c) Next time we should put only crops. I have decided brinjal

The following were advantages gained over this exercise
a) Soil has become more soft. The leftover roots would definitely add biomass.
b) Now we have a working patch.
c) It is not all that failure. We have made atleast 40% of money

Harvesting ? all hell broke loose

"Honey we are going to do harvesting in the farm - sweet potato ". - me

"Which one? your frail thin roots.  so soon ?"   my wife was instant in jumping on me.

Me running..

"Ah ! how can you say that it is frail, you have not even heard me full.   The time has matured, we have no more water". - me

"I dont care, dont talk to me anymore about your farm. It is your farm. You harvest, you dont harvest. How is it going to affect me?.

You brought the land on YOUR name a few years back when I was busy with something else. You cheated me saying that you are travelling for doing one land registration but you did many.... blah ... blah......"

My son and daughter who are now grown up were watching both of us. Or rather they were busy watching TV.  It is a break for them.  This is a routine and they now know something about how NOT to react.  Atleast they know that this noise will end by 8.30 pm when we will have dinner togather.

**

Finally the day has arrived, the day of First Harvest

Subbu has decided we dig the sweet potato out and sell. The last watering was done last week. It is more or less ready and we cannot waste more water on it.  The issue is we have to generously pour water which gets absorbed in trenches before even it reaches the far end.  The land is asking for better method of watering - perhaps drip irrigation.  But that is later.

Now having decided, let's get into action.  Today the potato wines are to be cleared and put into the new empty compost tank that is waiting.  (Well this is the first feed for even that, a sort of inauguration and demonstration of farm waste recycling).  Tomorrow the sweet potato will be dug using tracktor. He said manual labour is costly. I still insisted him to call few labo]ur where possible and rest get done with tractor.

After harvest, the sweet potato need not be washed. Just dust off and fill in the sack. It will be taken to Tirunelveli Market this time. want to observe what rate we get and how this whole thing works.

I am still not ready to hunt for Organic buyers. I need to work on my contacts, website and so on before promising someone of continuous supply.  

Presently the work on hand.........

Can We survive this summer ?

Around 10th July, 2014 I had made this simple diagram on microsoft sketch.
This was just for myself. I did not communicate this to Subbu.
Had I done, he would have got confused.
So I had to go step by step

It has always been at the back of my mind and that of Subbu's.  Now it has come to the forehead and lingering over.    Can we survive this summer.  Till last summer, we did not have any water source. We used to pump the water using handpump.  This is the first year, I have the pukka plan in place, complete with all ideas put into action.

Here is the quick review of it.

Step 1 :   After the installation of the windmill followed by a ready made plastic tank at 15 feet. For this we fabricated an iron frame.  Initially it did not support the weight, later it was reinforced. From this overhead tank of 1000 liters, water is sometimes directly taken for irrigation using the green hose. Otherwise overflow should go to the large cement tank

The water  tank atop an iron frame.  Pumped water comes into this.
The small tank at the bottom ground level was the first tank we constructed before the windmill.
today it is used to excess store water, panjagavya water etc.

Step 2 : We constructed a simple water Tank of large capacity (30 feet x 10) feet with unfinished bricks on the outer wall.  Water from windmill will fall into this. Notice a small thin water flow at the end. Underneath this tank we can open the valve which will let the water to the rainwater tank through an underground PVC pipe that we had laid earlier.

The main water tank.  windpump water will fall into this.  I believe this is getting filled in one week now.
This is full of moss growth. There are fishes in it.

Step 3 : The final destination. Rain water tank as it stands today. Note the water has hit the bottom. The tank is only 6 feet deep.

This is the open inlet to collect water from all directions and direct to
the rainwater tank. It is in the place where you are standing.
This is artificially made. Earlier the ground was flat.

The rainwater catchment tank. All drain water comes here.  This is fully muddy.
There are plenty of fishes growing here. Concern is that water level is receding. one full tank of water from cement tank will raise few inches of water here. 

From this muddy tank, if we need to pump water, we need the kerosene engine pump which is kept ready.

I am afraid, with current generation rate of water, if we will be water positive or negative during peak summer. Crossing fingers and waiting.  Subbu told that we need to sustain for atleast 2 more months? Why did he say 2 months? what will happen after that? Is he expecting rain or closing down of few patches ? Need to discuss further. I need to check the last year rain pattern.

We are anyway going to take risk by planting more plants.  Hey where is Kandan ? Has he come from his sick bed. I wanted him to prepare sowing mappillai samba rice on a small patch.

***

Beautiful Dustbin on the Farm

Perhaps I will be the first and only farmer to have a beautiful dustbin made in the farm.  I have given strict instructions to everyone not to litter anything especially of plastic substance.   Every plastic cover has to be deposited into the dustbin kept in the farm.  Even if the plastic escapes the neighbourhood by jumping the fence, they must chase it and bring it.

Even then there were some slips. Therefore we wanted to make it a habit. Now Subbu has decorated that with shade net cloth.  Earlier we had kept a wire mesh. The air was tumbling and lifting the thin plastic bags.  Now the bin is made of waste wood (the packing that came for windmill). It is strudy, large enough and firm.

Compost Tank Ready at last !

Sometimes the team does extremely well when you give instructions and leave it to their imagination.  We have a multi-skilled person called Paramu on the ground who is friend of Subbu.  Days togather he will be absent. But when he puts his tools, he creates wonder. One such thing is the Compost Tank.

I just gave an overview to Subbu and paramu over phone.  Low cost, holes for breathing,  two compartments etc.  Here is what they have created with least cost < Rs. 10,000/-. It is ready to receive the vegetable waste. Now I have to find the source for it. already I had told Subbu to be on the lookout at market yards and neighbouring farms.   The discovery is that no one is wasting anything. They are putting back to their soil.

Hmmmm......

These are large cement bricks (Size etc covered already earlier)

Foundation. the land is so chosen that nothing would grow.
Plus it is adjascent to the main gate which is to the left hidden in the picture.

Completed. Seen in the background is the green shade net.
Note that there are holes left between bricks. Actually it was made by stubbing the corners of each stone
When one compartment is filled with waste, the other will lye idle. Once this is filled, the other will start filling
thus i gues we will be able to shift the earth worms alternately.

Green Shade Net completed atlast !

After a lot of persuasion, waiting and followup,  a simple Shade for Nursary plants have been created.  Hope we can grow vegetable seeds underneath once we buy polythene bags.

Shadenet is ready

Started by procuring the shade net clothing through phone and getting it couriered to the farm from  a coimbatore supplier.  It cost Rs. 2100 for a 4.2 meters x 50 meters bundle (10 feet x 160 feet).

Inside the Shade net.  The floor has to be raisen in future.
Presently by blocking the gaps with mud, the purpose is done.
we need to purchase polythene bags for growing

Then it was pending for festival, sick holidays etc..  Finally yesterday the required poles  (casurina) was purchased and a large shade area of 25 feet x 15 feet created in one shot.   The poles were anchored on the mud and for strength additional poles were tied in cross fashion.  2 feet into the ground, two feet above the pandal.  Local design. Just serving the purpose. I got the photos mailed yesterday to me. I was surprised to see the chosen place. I thought of another place. This generally happens for remote execution. We need to further improve on the communication.  Anyway, good job done by my local team.

Ideally I did not want to cover all the sides, but team had done a brilliant job of half covering.  This is required to stop the warm air at ground level for nursary plants, at the same time providing transparancy and air circulation above hip level.

Objective is realised.

Birds and the Farm

While talking to Subbu I was asking him casually if we are getting winged visitors to the farm.  The answer was very important for me, but not for Subbu who is at ground zero. I told him that if our Organic farming is successful, then we must get more birds. That is the measurement.

He said lot of birds are coming without showing any emotion in his voice .  "Small big and large.  Sir, the fish pond is loosing its water. I need to refill it". He was more worried about it. I am not so worried as him, as I know we are getting enough fresh water pumped out by wind mill.

His worry was that if there is less water and fishes are growing they will be "exposed to the birds."  He theorized that nearby water bodies are drying. So when the birds finish them, they will finally come to this green patch to lunch on our fishes.  Valid Point.  He went on to take sanction from me to put a thin net at a later date.

Please take many photographs I said.  Wipe the camera lens and get closer.  I hope I will create a wildlife photographer out of Subbu.

Meanwhile what he said afterwards irked me.   He said some birds are also dying struck in windmill. how many ?  I asked.   "Sir so far around 5 to 6 have died".  What are they ?  "Two Mynah, two Wild Pigeon and one Gadai (Quail)"

How are they dying ?

"Sir I don't know. it is a surprise for me also".  Windmill rotor blades are a silvery glittering galvanised steel plates with 12 of them rotating in stable circular motion. There is no way a bird will hit this in a place which has very common electricity towers and high tension wires. The birds are used to avoiding such obstacles.

The mynah built its nest inside the rotor assembly and siblings came out.  Some time later the mother died there. Ok understood.  Mynah generally donot build nests unless they like that place. Here the assembly box is convenient for them. We may have to put a net for this box and prevent future nesting.

What about others ?  "Sir, the pigeon seems to be sitting on the blades when windmill is motionless. When it starts rotating, it is dropping dead !" But How ?  Even if they are sleeping on the rotor blades, when the motion starts, they must be thrown away. There is no reason they must die.

One thing is certain. Birds are not hitting the windmill on their flight. Atleast they are intelligent not to. They are dying when resting somewhere.

This is a puzzle that I need to crack.