Gounder talks about herbal cures

There's a Gounder shepherd who grazes his sheep and cows near our land. A very warm person - remembers people whom he met and enquires about them. I got him to talk about herbal remedies and he recommended udiyam or arasu pattai finely ground with sunnambu and onion for cuts and wounds. You keep wetting it and it can be removed the next day. He also talked about using kalli for wounds.


And just when I thought I had found a font of native healing wisdom, he recommended ice and soda for an upset stomach and vomiting!

more photos of the garden

Dec 22:
Here's what the veggies look like after a month and a half. That's the pIrkai kodi to the left and the solam in the foreground.

---

And the podalai.

---

And the sorai.

---

And the avarai.

---

And the paavai.

---

And the jicama.

---

And the madulai.

---

And the pushni which survived Arumugam's depredations.

---

Finally a two month old tAndri sapling.

---

once a year post

I spent  a lot of time this March and April looking for land in the Dindugal area with Karuna's help.  Both Karuna and his cousin spent a lot of time going around to various places and giving me a better idea of the area and what you can get for what price etc.  There were several promising areas but somehow nothing clicked.  Then I heard from Chitra (Gubbi) about Ivo and Thachi who had started a commune named Aranya and had acquired land in Pudukottai.  The Aranya Commune (http://aranya-commune.blogspot.com/) members was created with the idea of conserving rare species in the temple groves of Pudukottai.  Aranya also aims to do sustenance farming (organic), acquire additional land to generate income to support the venture and demonstrate the economic viability of organic farming.  I visited Pudukottai in June and Thachi and Balu showed me the land.  There was a beautiful banyan tree on the bund bordering the kanmai which was full of birds.  We talked about what Aranya was planning to achieve and it seemed to me that much of what I wanted to do matched with their aims.  I decided to join them and we rented a house at the village starting August.  I spent a week there around end August and got settled in.

Then I spent a couple of weeks at Auroville doing a course on mud based construction.  Met a lot of interesting folks - Jamshed the style guru with a mundu from Thrissur and John the redhead from Ulhasnagar Sindhi Association.  Learnt that rammed earth would probably be the best option for me and also got some idea of the complexity involved. 

Around September 19th was when I actually got started with the nursery and the vegetable plot.  Madhavan and Prabha came that weekend and helped plant thaandri saplings (witness the grins after the work got done!).

M&P got some nice snaps of some beautiful red spiders in the fields.

This is a paati we bought part of the land from:

Oct 26th: Planted pomegranate (madulai) couple of days back.

Nov 3rd: Planted veggies - ridge gourd (peerkai), bottle gourd long (sorai), short, bitter gourd (paavai),  snake gourd (podalai), ladies finger (vendai), avarai, jicama (a mexican root plant that tastes like an apple), watermelon, musk melon, maize, radish (mullangi), coriander (malli).

Nov 8th: Planted 150 nelli in the nursery besides what was already there.  Peerkai, avarai, watermelon and mullangi have germinated.  Madulai as well.





Nov 13th:
Planted neem today and a couple of days ago.  Taandri 25 out of 93 germinated.

Nov 18th:
Planted 200 more nelli.  Want to compare with nelli planted in top soil from the garden (without manure & red soil).

Nov 19th:
Some sorai plants near the karuvel got fungus or some pest on the leaves - its been raining for the last couple of days.  Trimmed the karuvel a bit.  Thinned out mullangi and got keerai to eat!  Transplanted ones don't seem to be doing very well (maybe just the shock).  Decided not to water because ground is still wet even though it did not rain.  Malli and ash gourd also germinated in the last week.  Neighbor said avarai should be planted in aadi only and not now.

Nov 20th:
Planted five each of all the seeds we have of tree species: gangi ravi, bohanima, gummadi teak, red sandal, acacia planifrons, veegisa, elandai, nux vomica, soapnut, subabul, seema thangedy, naravepa, mahogany, magizham, orange, a round brown seed 1/2" size (the turka vepa?), kadukkai.

Dec 3rd:
Arumugam cleared space in the garden to plant millets (keppai, tinai, varagu and kambu on the varappu) and ellu for seeds. In the process he killed one pushni and one solam (I had only two :-(). Started gomyam mix with neem, chilli, garlic, tobacco, a weed and leaves from the neighbor's tree (ask Thachi for the name).

Applied gomyam to the sorai but didn't seem to help. The vendai seems better.

Dec 18th:
Plugged openings in the South, North, SE corner. Applied gomyam to veggies. Balu showed me sentatti which causes itching (will add a photo). Also showed me a keerai like ponnanganni. Vendi in the field have started to fruit - probably not getting enough nutrients. Tatta pairu, kambu, vellai solam, and ellu have germinated in the last four plots in the field. But lots of water standing - hope they survive. Lots of vembu has germinated in the packets more than a week back. Have to repacket those. Reseeded nelli that did not germinate.

Dec 22nd:
Added goat manure to veggies in the field and the garden.

Could not get any gomyam for the vendai in the garden. Tried substituting with human urine :-) but a rain promptly washed out my experiment. Could not put sambal on it either. Hope it survives.

Fenced off a larger part of the garden and started tomatoes and brinjal in it. Planted kadukkai in the nursery.

Mrs.Malathy's rooftop garden

She looks like Mma Ramotswe out of "Ladies No 1 Detective Agency" by Alexander McCall Smith. She runs a detective agency in Chennai and has solved 7000 cases in the last 20 years or so - averaging one case a day!
In her spare time she takes care of a rooftop garden on her Medavakkam residence, a 1/2 acre farm in Agaram 8 kms away. I found her very innovative and after meeting her I realized that many of the roadblocks that frustrate us only point to a lack of creativity. She has managed to grow creepers and grape vines from the ground up to the first floor where they form a beautiful canopy over the house. She grows them first in a cement bag filled with coconut fibre and compost with a tall stick stuck into it. When the creeper grows up to the top of the stick it is transplanted into the soil next to the house and allowed to creep up to the top. Simple and effective!

Here's an article in the Hindu about her.

Pillayar Nattam land acquired by MLA

who is planning on quarrying it for granite. For this holy purpose, he has built a tar road through reserve forest. On the positive side, at least we didn't get a quarry in our backyard. Don't lose hope though says Muthu - there's a spot near Gopalpatti on the Dindugal Nattam highway that is highly regarded by kaattu erumais and other friends.

Land near Pillayar Nattam

I looked at land in Pillayar Nattam which is around 40 km from Dindugal and 60 km from Madurai. It is surrounded by hills on the South, West and North and is open to the East. It is reasonably isolated and has a small population so the likelyhood of conflict with neighbours should be lower. It seems to have a lot of water - several people we spoke to said that they never had any water problems. Here's the view to the South:

And the view to the East:
There is a small temple to the North with some goats grazing around it:

Organic farming experiences

I spent 4-5 months with a couple of communities at Auroville (Aurobrindavan - Bernard and Deepika and Solitude - Krishna). Learnt a lot and met some very interesting folks.

Bernard's place is very interesting because the land is highly eroded and has absolutely no humus and is rock hard if you try to dig. Deepika has managed to create raised beds using the Prayog Parivar method that yield very healthy and tasty (trust me to verify that!) vegetables.

At Krishna's place we planted a lot of lettuce - starting with seeds in small cups in the nursery and transplanting after a couple of weeks. Planted tomatoes, several kinds of very tasty basil (there was an anise basil that I liked a lot), cucumber, pumpkin, brinjal. Threshed the ragi, red rice. Mulched a lot! Built earthen walls for Krishna's house. Made ragi dosai, pongal, rotis. And I nearly forgot - we used to harvest papayas every day in the morning. Believe me, catching a 3 kg papaya falling from 20ft is no joke. I bet after that I'd have been better than the average on the Indian cricket team. Generally had a lot of fun!

Then I spent about 3 months with my friend Siddarth in Sengottai - he has a small fruit orchard. The land is on a small hillock and you can sit and see other hills around and clouds floating in between. And you can see the checkerboard paddy fields just beyond. Its all quite pretty until you realize that to water anything you have to lug a kodam up a 100 feet! My land is going to be like a billiards table :-)

We started a vegetable patch and planted kottavarai, mullangi, jack beans, ginger, turmeric. We tested Bernard's tips to use charcoal to minimise leaching by mixing charcoal into one bed and the turmeric from that bed was definitely bigger and healthier. Also planted tuvarai and ragi on the bunds. We started a compost heap but apparently it didn't do too well - S thinks its because the water got in. So he is trying again without soil and covered with a plastic sheet. Climbed a lot of trees - specially the jack because I wanted to make as much jam as I could! I think we have nearly perfected the art of making good chakka jam and mango pickle that does not spoil easily.