Farmland Tales - Planting Fruit Trees

Farmland Tales - Planting Fruit Trees - Oct Week 4

Passion Fruit, Mango And Citrus Plantation 

So what's happening this week at our tiny farm with big dreams? 

Today is planting day again if I had a wand I would have converted our piece of the farm into a food forest in a woosh. I really want to get the garden up and green but well things are going to be slow. So we made one more trip to the nursery and got our selves some sweet lemon plants, Kafir lime, Mango, orange, two more passion fruit plants, and Betel nut leaf creeper. And of course, we have Bogey, our Shih Tzu, out here again with us.

Purple Passion Fruit 
In India, Passion Fruit is grown in many states. The two main variants of passion fruit in India are the purple passion fruit and the yellow passion fruit. Kerela has been lately leading in the cultivation of passion fruits in India.

I will come back in a couple of weeks to get my structure ready for the Passion fruit plants. One needs to have a spacing of at least a foot between two plants while planting these beauties, as they can grow up to about 8 feet. Since the plants can last up to 4 years - if not more - they need a good structure or trellis for them to grow. The first fruit-bearing generally happens in 6-8 months and the first year is generally not so great in terms of numbers of fruits but from the second year on each plant should be bearing about 200 or more fruits per vine.

For the lemon, mango, lemon and orange plants we dug holes about two feet into the soil at a gap of about 15 feet, added in some organic compost and placed the plants and filled the holes with dirt.

We spent a few hours planting and painting the walls and finally exhausted camped out for some beer.

Planting Kaffir Lime 

The sun can get really hot and exhausting by around 11 am so we try to plan our work early in the morning before its gets too hot. Ofcourse then its picnic and camping time before packup.
And you can guess who had worked the most ....!!!

Hydroponics - My first Attempt

Hydroponics - My first Attempt At Kratky System

Before I set up my hydroponics system at the farm I wanted to try my hand at it. To understand it better and make all the mistakes I needed to make while my investments were small. And so started my small experiment in what I call my green-home-lab.

I started from scratch, which meant, starting all the way from sowing and germinating seeds organically, to setting up my system. You can read all about the method I followed for seed germination in my blog by following the link above. For my experiment, I used Jalapaneo and tomato seedlings which I grew from seed.

Kratky system is one of the simplest hydroponic methods of growing food. This involves growing plants in still clean water by adding organic nutrients in intervals and aerating the water at regular intervals. Here is a step-by-step process of setting up your first Kratky system

Step 1
Get online or hop to your nearest gardening equipment store and get your self some net cups, cocopeat, hydroponics nutrients, and small clay balls - these would be needed to support the plant as it grows.

Step 2
Preparing the container to grow your plants. You could use a mason jar or old pet bottles. Select the jar in such a way that your net cup fits well at its mouth. The net cup shouldn't slip into the jar nor should it stand out above the jar. The rim of the net cup should sit firmly on the rim of your mason jar's mouth. Incase you are using pet bottles, carefully cut the top of the bottle so that the net cup sits on its rim well. See the image below to help you get an idea.
Now cover the outer surface of your container with silver foil so that no sunlight can reach the roots once you have planted your sapling. This is important because if sunlight starts getting to the water it can promote the growth of harmful bacteria and algae which would lead to root-rot and eventually decaying of your plant.

Once this is done your container is ready to be used

Container Preparation For Kratky System - Hydroponics 

Step 3 
Once your seedling has grown two to three true leaves it is ready to be transplanted. Add a few clay balls to the base of the net cup then add in your seedling and pack the sides with a bit of coco peat and clay balls. Now you fill your Kratky container prepared earlier with RO water and add in the nutrients as per the instructions on the nutrient box's cover. The nutrients ware mainly NPK mix and Epsom salt. Next, gently place the net cup with the plant on to the month of your jar.

And that its. Place the jar either under LED lights or at a place where you don't have strong sunlight. Ensure you aerate the water using a simple aquarium air pump every day for at least 20 - 30 minutes (if not more)

A few things to be cautious about ....ensure water stays clean. If you see the water clouding or the roots turning a dirt brown it means there is some bacterial activity on. Change the water immediately.
And if needed clip the brown roots.
The root system should be healthy and white

That’s how I set up my Kratky system and now I have healthy Jalapeños and tomato plants

Seed Germination

Germinating Seeds Using Coco Peat 

Over the past few months I had read so much about Hydroponics and researched quite a bit both online and by meeting some of the experts around town that I really wanted to get down to doing it myself....yes I am a bit impatient.

I started my experiment about two months back. The developments at the farm were slow so I jumped into setting up my own Kratky system at home. This method of hydroponics is super easy and you can set it up at home with minimum investments. I will write more about it in my next blog.

But to get started I first needed healthy seeding.

I started by ordering some coco peat and seeds via amazon. Coco peat is an excellent alternative for soil. Because it is light and fibrous it allows air to flow and prevents moulds from forming. Moulds are one of the main reasons for low seed germination.

Received my packets of Cherry Tomato and Jalapeno seeds in a week and that got me going. I started by first preparing the Coco peat for sowing the seeds. As my Coco peat brick was quite big ( 1kg ) I broke about 2-3 inches from one side and put it in a small tub.

Next soaked it in about 1 liter of water for about two hours for it to swell. Before careful about not adding too much water. You can always add in a little water first and once it's absorbed if you think the Cocopeat is still dry add in some more. Coco peat on wetting expands about 5-6 times. So if you are using it for the first time break off smaller chunks, soak them in water and let them swell. Add in more Coco peat only if you think you need more.

Next, I divided the damp cocopeat into two containers that had transparent plastic lids. Once I had smoothened the fibers of cocopeat I started with making small 1cm holes. Next came the sowing stage for the Cherry tomatoes. I dropped in one seed into each hole and gently covered it with Cocopeat. At this stage be gentle when you cover the seeds. We don't want to push the seed way down. Gently brush the cocopeat over the hole to cover it.

Once I had finished with the tomatoes I moved over to sow the Jalapeno seeds. Followed the same steps as above. 

Then I covered the lids of the containers and place them under LED lights. In about 4 days the germination had started

Setting up the Germination Process 

Wait until the seeds have about one to two sets of true leaves. That's when they would be strong enough to withstand transplantation.

During the course of time that you are waiting for the true leaves to come out, you might need to sprinkle a bit of water in case the Coco Peat starts to dry out. Just ensure your water is JUST ENOUGH.....we don't want the Cocopeat to be runny at any stage. It should resemble lose fluffy damp soil
  

Country Egg Burger Sandwich

Country Egg Burger Sandwich 

Country hen eggs are one of the most nutritious sources of eggs. The hens, in this case, are allowed to run around free on the farms and are not fed hybrid grains to quicken the egg-laying process. 

In other words, their egg-laying process is natural and these are not cultivated eggs. Country eggs have six times the Omega-3s of regular eggs. While that is yet to be proved the favour and smell of country eggs is really distinct. They are brown and generally smaller in size than cultivated eggs and their shells are much stronger too. 

Quick Country Egg (Desi Egg) Sandwich

Total Time: 5 Min 

Yumminess Value: Awesome 

Ingredients Needed 

2 country eggs (Desi eggs)

1 burger bun

2 teaspoons of mayonnaise

1/2 teaspoon of mustard sauce  

1 Lettuce leaf  for crunch

1 Cheese slice 

Pinch of Oregano

Pinch of Basil 

Pinch of chilli flakes (if you'd like to make it hot)

Salt to taste if needed  

Butter for frying the eggs 

Take a small dollop of butter in a pan and heat it on fire. Now break the eggs and fry them to your taste - double or single fry. 

Slice the burger bun from the centre. Apply the mayonnaise to inner one side of one half of the bun and the mustard to the inner side of the other half of the bun. 

Now we start layering. Take the lower half of the bun and add the fried egg to it. Next sprinkle the Oregano, Basil, Chilli flakes and salt( if needed).

Add a fresh Lettuce leaf for getting in some crunch and finally add the slice of cheese. 

Cover our yummy tower with the other half of the bun and microwave for 10-20 sec to just get the cheese to soften a bit. 

Voila, our quick country egg burger sandwich is ready. 

Farmland Tales - Oct Week 3

Planting Passion Fruit   

Oct Week 3 - Its Saturday again....suddenly for us, Saturday has a new meaning.
Our work here is still on a slow note, we are still waiting for the electricity to come in. We had initially contemplated going off-grid but then have dropped the idea for now.

 SO ...the update for this weekend is a bit of wall painting, made a few shelters for the Red Lady Papaya saplings, planted a Passion Fruit sampling and was super excited as our little lemon plant has started bearing fruits. By the way the new plant on the block this weekend was the Passion Fruit plant. I packed the small plant into the soil with organic compost and gave it a rope to start its climb.
This weekend we didn't have time to make a structure for it to grow. That's a project I'll complete in the weeks to come.
We also noticed two tiny lemons today.

The rains have subsided a bit and I am guessing it's going to get super sunny in the days to come.  I decided to give small tempory covers for the papaya saplings using small dried sticks and plastic fabric, leaving the sides open for ventilation.

We got two small tubs primer for the walls. Started off with Nerolac primer for the outer and the inner side of the walls. Since this is only the base coat we are still contemplating on the final color. May be burnt olive .... you have any thoughts or suggestions do message in the comments section.

It was a fun morning. I had packed some sandwiches and tea.

Weekend -Week 3

Farmland Tales - Follow Our Journey

Oct - Week 1
This week ended with a long weekend and my husband and I could spend some extra time on the farm. I wanted to make raised beds and get those ready, but couldn't get that part of the work finished. In fact we could get it started either. We still don't have electricity on our farm so we are having to go a bit slow right now. Hopefully, that should come in a couple of months.

We had to clear all the trees on the land to level it initially and now I feel it looks really sad. I wanted to cover it with fruit trees to make it look a little better in my words ... a bit happier 😊😊.

So a couple of weeks back we planted our first Chikoo tree and Guava tree and then this week we planted some Moringa plants, Curry leaves plant, two lemon trees, and four Papaya saplings. I have used organic compost until now while planting. The ratio is 50-50. 50% soil and 50% organic compost.

There are quite a few different ways to make organic compost and a number of videos shared by organic gardeners on how to make that. I have added a link above that could possibly help you.

I picked up Red lady variety of Papaya saplings. This is a Thai variety of Papaya. Have planted them for the first time so let's see how they do. As a thumb rule about 15-20 cm. tall seedlings are planted during spring (February-March), monsoon (June-July) and autumn (October-November). To know more about the best season and soil information can be got from the National Horticulture Board 

 In case you have any suggestions on improving Papaya growth organically please do share your thoughts in the comments below. 

We also planted the Stevia shrubs we got a couple of weeks back. Made a makeshift shed for them in one of the far corners of the farm. Stevia is another super herb and beneficial to people suffering from Diabetes or looking at reducing sugar in order to lose weight. It is used extensively as an alternative to sugar. There are a lot of alternatives in the market today like dates sugar and cocopalm sugar, and Stevia is one of them. You can either buy ready-made Stevia powder off the shelf or dry leaves from Stevia plant in the shade and make your own powder. But be sure to check with your doctor before using natural Stevia. If you are keen on cultivating Stevia on a large scale there is a lot of help available online. 

We used some green net cloth of the shed and two strong branches for support. The green net coth would project the newly planted Stevia shrubs from the sun and the rain.

While the major part of the cultivation is still something we are planning, I am trying to include fruits and herbs which have health benefits. We will use these for our selves as well as for barter. 

You can see the damage the rain has done to our newly constructed wall. The flow of water was so strong that it pushes the mud on the other side through the wall. This will be redone as soon as the rains settle down a bit.

The sun is very strong when it isn't raining so I covered the seedlings with big Oak leaves to protect them. And of course you can see Bogie inspecting my work again.

After all the hard work we decided to rest a bit under the shade. The weather is beautiful. We set up our tents and opened up our picnic basket.

Sept Week 4

Its been raining really hard so this week we couldn't get anything done. Rain is totally welcome. Need it for the underground water beds to get recharged.  The pathway to our farm was completely flooded.

Sept Week 3

Wow today was one incredible day. Since we get to spend only a few hours per week on the farm we try to fit in as much as possible. So this week we had planned to doing some primer on the walls as well as hunt for the right nursery.

We found an amazing nursery where I could find some of the fruit trees I really wanted as well as some other plants I was looking for. They have acres and acres of amazing plants. I picked up a couple of Dragon fruit plants, Passion fruit, Red Lady Papaya, Lemon, Moringa and Curry leaves to start with. We also got a couple of Stevia shrubs.

I was looking for a creeper variety of Rose which I wanted to plant at the main gate of the farm but couldn't get those yet.






Aug - 2019 Week 4 The walls are done and we planted our first fruit trees- Chikcoo and white-centered guava. And we have Bogie inspecting if I did it right

Chikoo tree plantation

Aug Week 3 We found a stream not very far from our farmland ... it’s a trek away 




Aug Week 2 

We started installing a compound wall around the land to avoid cattle from coming in. We had to get help from local workers to fit in the slabs. Our options were either building a brick wall or working with prefabricated ones. Opted for pre-fabricated walls. They are quicker to install and can be done really fast. 

We cemented the pillars so that they hold strong. Of course Bogie was part of the excitement and fell into the pits dugout for the pillars a couple of times.

Hello peepa ... sharing our story about our latest DIY project —- getting our farmland up and running( not the typical big traditional farm but rather a small piece of land). Something we purchased almost 12 years ago but didn’t have the time to work on. We are building it our selves piece by piece and would be glad to get your comments or suggestions as to along. Neither of us is from a farming background. Sharing a few pics of what it was 4 months back to now.

We have our regular day jobs which we manage through the weekday and run off to the farm over the weekend. It has been a shift from looking forward to our typically parting-with-friends over the weekend to working-on-the-farm over the weekend.

Overgrown and wild ... that’s how it was 4 months back

We started the clearing work. We leveled the ground.  

Our little Shishtzu - Bogie is super excited to be here ... more excited were the crows. They are used to seeing farm cows and sheep’s much bigger than lil bogie and couldn’t help wonder what this tiny four-legged creature was! This little dog child of ours has been having a lot of fun running around