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.........

Rain has stopped. How long will the stored water last ?

There is no rain.
There is no wind.
There is no source of water.
But we are confident.

There is some water still in the ground level rain water pond (30x30). Subbu has used this water twice for planting sweet potato slips and watering them. The first water was given immediately after planting (called life water) and the second, one week later. This includes banana plants as well. He estimates the water will last for another two rounds of watering, which is for another 15 days. I guess it will be muddy water, neverthless...

The water from the pit had to be pumped out. For this a kerosene oil engine was hired. At Rs. 40/- per liter, Kerosene can run a 5 HP pump for one hour. We need 2 Hours of operation. The rental charge is Rs. 100 per hour. Therefore total 280/- for 2 hours pumping including rental and fuel.

The rented pump

Meanwhile there is very weak wind. The well oiled windpump is pumping around half tank of water (500 lts). This is enough to water the vegetable plots.

Either wind should blow or rain should come.  Surprisingly there is no monsoon rain at all. The little rain that came was due to a cyclone. There is no wind either. Perhaps it is changing its gears and may start to blow from different direction.

Energy Plans:

1.  We need to plan to purchase a kerosene pump for permanent use. This will be portable over a bicycle and can be shifted. water need to be pumped either from the rainwater pond to overhead tank or the cement tank to overhead tank in future.  I estimate it should cost Rs. 20000/- for the pump as well as engine.

2. In the absence of wind, we need to pump water from the bore-well. We cannot insert a submersible anyway. Therefore we need to insert rubber tube alongside windmill pipe and keep a centrifugal pump at the ground level to suck the water.

Source of power ?  

a)  Electricity is still far away. I sense trouble there. As the days come near to give the connection, the department people may ask more and more money. I asked Subbu to employ some intelligence and access how much bribe they may ask. If we need to reach from the nearest transformer which is in a village, then it will cost hell a lot of money. I am not going to invest.

b) The kerosene pump is good option. With a centri fugal pump attached, it should work. Though it is not environment friendly, but can be a stop gap for some time.

c) Mini Solar pump is an option. But even for 1 KV, the setup cost will be around 1 lakh rupees even if we donot use a battery. Just direct solar power should drive the motor which will pump the water from bore-well into to overhead tank in case of no wind. This will be hybrid green solution. There are no genuine suppliers that I know off. Going by my last year survey, solar industry has still not improved.  Solar is riddled with cheap Chinese panels and cheating at dealer level.  Need to explore more.

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Farm Update 27 October, 2014

After a week of Diwali festival, the entire country is settling down to work. I called Subbu to take an update and discuss this week plans.

a) Rains have stopped for the time being. Still the mud is heavily soaked in water and hence tractor cannot plough the ground. We have planned to plough two square plots of around 25 cents each to be used for multipurpose, mainly experimenting.  Subbu's brother is owing a tractor. So it is convenient to call him whenever we want.  We need to invite tractor tomorrow. There is heavy sunshine today. 
Moral : Have a handy contact in hand always for every work.

b) There is no wind. Not even the anemometer is rotating. If this continues, we may have to use the reserve water. Currently water is available in full at the ground level rain water pit. Strangely, this  water is not soaking inside the mud layers. The bottom is already rock, so water has to escape sideways, but it is not. Therefore good news is we can use it to store for long time. And grow some fish as well.  Bad news is that ground will not get moistened for crops.

Half a tank of water is also available in the cement tank (30x20 feet) that can be filled only by surplus water from wind pump.
Moral : Be careful about water usage even during rainy season.

c) There was a slippage of ball bearing (SKF) on the wind pump. Wind rotor stopped working.  Subbu, had to set it right by climbing the tower top during Diwali when it was also raining. It required two more people to hold the Rod assembly, slowly rotate the crank and fix it.  The root cause was that these bearings are using Allen Key to tighten the screws in place. The engineer who installed the pump did not have all the Allen Keys (Kind of spanner for Allen screws). So he left it half fixed which has slipped during its up and down motion. I asked Subbu to purchase a set of screw drivers for permanent farm use.
Moral: Have a complete tool kit at every farm.

d) In next few days we will sow the following seeds.
a) Mappillai Samba Seeds
b) Vegetable seeds all in small quantities in a round robin fashion on a raised bed.  Grown mainly to produce seeds.
c) Sweet Potato and Jasmine flower saplings in alternate rows.

e) Subbu suggested we will sow some sweet potato. It seems neighbours are doing it. Let us copy the same. Then within these plots, jasmine saplings which are purchased will be planted as inter crop in raised beds.  I am of the opinion we need to mix as much as possible, so that we avoid mono cropping even at small level and invite various diseases.
Moral:  Copy and Improve the neighbourhood.

f) After a long wait and lot of discussion, I told Subbu to drop the plan of going to Parasalla to purchase coconut saplings or purchase from nearby Valliyoor who is not committed. We will stick to Ramji Nursary in Nagarcoil. We have experience with them. The gardners over there are friendly. We need to pickup 30 coconut and all different tree varities.
Moral : Don't attempt to buy small quantity from big or small unknown nursery.  Choose good nursery which is flexible and provides quality.

g) We planned to plant trees on the perimeter of our plot also outside wherever possible. Let us use this rainy season and increase greenery.  I have always wanted to start a social movement to make the area green. But that will involve thousands of saplings, and hundreds of hands.   Doing a social movement along with villlagers to plant thousands of trees - is a little far away. Presently let me start small, grow some green and invite more people.
Moral: Do something yourself before expecting social responsibility from others.

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