Irrigated salad bars/green manure are relatively easy depending on the monsoon each year. At Annapurna, we receive an ample monsoon (summer and winter) and sometimes, even a cyclone at times. As a result, rain water harvest ponds have more capacity to sustain the rice, orchards, and fodder, because of which we sow early harvested paddy…
On the day of Ayudha Pooja (technically, celebrated it a day before the actual one) we had Manou visiting Annapurna to photograph some of the ladies who work at the farm. Manou has been travelling for the last 10 years taking images across India. His blog Wearabout is a document of people and clothing focusing…
As mentioned before in these blogs, summertime is the best time for the farm to get projects done to expand and improve Annapurna’s capacity. In the last several weeks we have picked up the unfinished work of a project which was started in 2018 when we got liberal funding to expand our rainwater harvest capacity.…
At last we got it going. Our blue and white Treo Zor electric three-wheeler is zipping around Auroville doing daily deliveries of dairy products, grains and bananas. And it feels soo good. After years of struggling with old mopeds which we often overloaded to be able to get everything delivered in time, this is really…
I Pictures: straw bales being made – straw bales in the rain. We are in the process of harvesting the 20 acres of paddy and hope to finish in a few weeks. The paddy was planted with intervals and so the harvest is also happening in steps. In this way we can better manage the…
It is funny, when we do not write up what we do, people wonder if anything is happening on the farm at all. Often the opposite is true; we are just too busy with the reality so that writing about it is coming last. Besides being busy with paddy cultivation and harvest, monsoon and what…
This morning we had our first kumquat harvest. The harvest is small; around 5.5 kg. Still, I am very excited about it. We have sown the seeds about 4 years back and ever since then we have been nurturing the 6 trees very carefully. Annapurna’s heavy clay is not very suitable for citrus. We elevated…
The world has changed a lot since we began farming here in the mid nineteen-eighties. Land prices have increased manifold. Indian population has grown by more than 70% and industrial development is growing very fast in our area. Educational institutions and big hospitals are springing up everywhere. All this is happening at the cost of…
Rice cultivation and dairy work are the two most intensive activities at Annapurna Farm. Dairy is thriving throughout the year with a daily need of attention and work to be done. Paddy cultivation is happening for about 7-8 months per year in the field, and is very intensive with peak labor needs at planting and…
I have not been active on the blog since some weeks. Life got too busy on and off the farm and the writing needed to take a back seat. In the last month we worked hard on the main farm road. Pictures from left to right: material for the road repair – road work in…
Annapurna Farm Auroville 