Farmer should be self-sufficient. Food is a very important department of self-sufficiency. We are growing our staple food - paddy. Next in the list are vegetables. These are the vegetable crops we planted so far in this monsoon.
A female pumpkin flower
(a bee is busy pollinating the flower - click to see full size image)
Pumpkin (ಕುಂಬಳ/ಚೀನಿ ಕಾಯಿ) creeper
(a colocasia plant and a coconut
plant are seen in the background)
Growing pumpkin with a smaller one in the background and buds
Last year I had written a detailed post about paddy cultivation. This year also we did almost the same - with one change. Decided to bring some old technologies. Brought in Bangarappa's (our farm neighbour and farm helper) traditional skills and his animals for ploughing the field. It is lot of hard work both for human and the animals. But it is far less destructive compared to machines - they burn so much fossil fuel, throw lot of carbon into the air and also over-till the ground damaging the soil biology.
Last year I had borrowed seeds from Bangarappa. I did completely natural farming - I did not use chemicals and fertilisers of any kind. My crop had got some diseases. Plants resisted diseases and grew well. I got one generation of seeds grown without chemicals. Hopefully this year they will improve further in disease resistance and adaptation to local environment.
I should have treated seeds with biological agents like pseudomonas. My bad - I missed it because of my bad planning. I will for sure do it in the next season. I have to wait for one more year for that though :-(
We sowed seeds on 30-Jun. Saplings were transplanted on 16-Jun. We ran out of saplings though because of a minor mistake. Our saplings were little younger than the usual age transplanting. Transplanting workers did not consider that. They planted usual thickness of plants - ending up planting one or two extra samplings in each group. Because of that we ran out of saplings when one small terrace was still to be planted. Thanks to Bangarappa - he borrowed some saplings from another farmer who had some excess saplings and completed the job.
It is the time of the year everybody in India is eagerly looking forward to - monsoon time. Monsoon not only brings lot of water; it also brings lot of interesting things (see below). It is the single biggest event of the year for farmers like me because it makes or breaks the plans for the next whole year. Everything gets delayed if monsoon is delayed. Year is ruined because of lack of water if monsoon is short. Lives and property lost if monsoon is in excess. Therefore, our lives hang in fine balance setup by monsoon!
So far (June-2017) monsoon had been disappointing for South India this year. Government statistics say our district (Shimoga district in Karnataka state) had 40% less rain this year compared to long term average. However, it has started raining well in last few days. Hopefully it will pick up now and cover up the shortage in rest of this monsoon season.
Some pictures of this monsoon:
One day came out of the house and found this beautiful orchid on a tree in front of the house. Such a beautiful creation of nature it is. See the close-up for more details of the compound flower. Pictures are not as good as I wanted them to be - continuous rain and less than satisfactory light conditions because of heavy cloud cover interfered with my efforts of taking better pictures.
Orchid in front of the house
Closeup
Very wet conditions created by the monsoon bring up lot of hidden life to visibility. See some amazing fungi found in our farm and around house.
Near our home
White fungi on dead coconut tree in the farm
Red fungi on dead coconut tree in the farm
Monsoon brings in its share of misery too. Here is one example of it - a tree fell on a 11,000 V electricity line bringing down the poles and wires to the ground. Luckily nobody was hurt. Electric equipment in the nearby homes were burnt to charcoal when the 11,000 V line touched 230 V domestic supply lines. Building behind the fallen tree is a school. Kids were inside the school when the incident took place. You can imagine what kind of disaster it would have been if this happened when the kids were walking out of school.
