Since moving to the farm in August, we have been quite caught up with building a couple of rooms for our residence there. While managing this has taken up most of our time and efforts, we have managed to find a bit of time to plant a vegetable patch.
We had earlier tried planting beans, but we have faced two problems: not enough rain at the right time, and rabbits, wild goats and deer eating up the plants overnight. We now have water storage to tide us over the dry patches (and anyway, right now we're having rain almost every day, so we're hoping the dry patches are far away); also, the risk of the animals nibbling away at our vegetable patch has reduced since putting up the fishnet fence.
So, here's some of the farming work we've been doing.
Ginger. We had bought about 10 kg of ginger from a friend in Munnar. We first tried out a small sample in a large tarpaulin bag, and they came out well (we put in soil + coconut pith + compost in equal portions in the bag). So we've now planted the ginger (in all, about 8 kg) in a bed, and they seem to have come out well. We'll have to see if they grow as well as in the bags.
Radish, as before, has done well in the micro patch that we sowed it in. Onion and potato are showing some promise too, we just need to plant them now in a larger patch.
We had earlier tried planting beans, but we have faced two problems: not enough rain at the right time, and rabbits, wild goats and deer eating up the plants overnight. We now have water storage to tide us over the dry patches (and anyway, right now we're having rain almost every day, so we're hoping the dry patches are far away); also, the risk of the animals nibbling away at our vegetable patch has reduced since putting up the fishnet fence.
So, here's some of the farming work we've been doing.
Ginger. We had bought about 10 kg of ginger from a friend in Munnar. We first tried out a small sample in a large tarpaulin bag, and they came out well (we put in soil + coconut pith + compost in equal portions in the bag). So we've now planted the ginger (in all, about 8 kg) in a bed, and they seem to have come out well. We'll have to see if they grow as well as in the bags.
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| The ginger planted on the ground, a month later. |
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| The ginger we first tried out in tarpaulin bags. |
Radish, as before, has done well in the micro patch that we sowed it in. Onion and potato are showing some promise too, we just need to plant them now in a larger patch.
We had our first harvest of coffee beans this year. Yes, it was only a micro harvest, but it gladdened our hearts even before we drank it!
Chow-chow is shaping up well, just that we need to quickly complete the support structure for it before the plants grow too big. In the meanwhile, some of the creepers running up a tree are providing for us.
We have also endured a few weeks of continuous drizzling, and some days we wondered if the sun was still around. Our tomato plants were doing well, but could not withstand the cold, so we need to plant them again.
In the meanwhile, what about the house that we had started to build? Well, that has made lots of progress, and that will be on the next post. See you again soon!
