Hands on Permaculture

just went to get an acupuncture treatment here for my back and foot in the small village where i have been staying outside of katapana.   it turns out he is a proponent of organic agriculture and lives in a village about 50 kgm from here over into the state of tamil nadu.  he says that the grapes and most of the vegetables we are eating here come from there.  he is very connected and would very much like to share with me, his connections to the organic community.  so i am going off there on the 10th to stay there for a couple of days

wanted to share some of my process here.  i was reading a book called  The Alchemist by pavlo Caelo (or something like that).  one thing he repeats over and over in his book is that if you are on the right path, the whole universe will support you.  so here i  was several days ago up here with a hurt back, my nose running like a sieve, my foot hurting (but only when i walk), walking 3 hours to find a place to sleep, wondering how i can possibly learn about the wonderful food forests all around me.  of course he also says how you will be tested to see if your vision is true.  

so my english speaking internet cafe operator tells me about a restaurant up here along a side road i had not seen, and i finally go to  it.  the restaurant is hot and no one speaks english and i want to know what i am eating, so that did not work out.  but right next door was an acupuncturist.  not that day but the next i finally went in to see the acupuncturist and voila, see the above paragraph.  it was finding a long lost brother, who will help me with all of my wishes, dreams and needs for people to connect with.

then today i got out in this small village and started walking down the road.  several km into it,  i had to use a bathroom badly.  just around the bend was some sort of dam project.  i went up to the security person and asked for a toilet and voila, a clean toilet.  you have to understand that i am a little hung up on toilets.  everywhere in the “woods” i go, i see people and many of the toilets are filthy, so wanting clean toilets  is a big need and when i needed it it was there.  

so again if i do not clutch, things are working.

it seems there are a lot of catholic schools up here.  today i saw some Muslim girls at a catholic school.  the buses need to go on the opposite side of the road for the hairpin turns and they honk a lot and everyone waits for them to do their thing.

i was planning on riding to kumily, but after 4 hours of this bus, i decided to  i had had enough.  my new method of traveling is to listen to what i need rather than stick to my plans.    i met a wonderful man in his bicycle shop and he found me a hotel.  the first one he said would be 300 rupies and they wanted 1000,  hijack the tourist time.  it was a dog, and in town,  so i went back to my friend.  he found me another one which was in the next village over, so much quieter and it was 350 rupies (about 5 dollars).  in this village there is internet, great food and a woman at the internet place who speaks english and a place that i could buy some shifts (they use them for nighties) that are cotton and cooler than what i brought. 

i went to thekkady on the bus.  the tiger preserve is like a national park, you have to pay to get in  then i paid for a boat trip where i might see some of the wild animals.  the boat was on a lake formed by a dam.  they took 5-6 smelly noisy polluting boats in a group around this lake, as a way to see the animals.  well i did see a rhino running which was quite a site.  the good news is that all of these indian people did not talk on the whole trip.  there were signs that said if you want to see the animals silence is needed.    the bad news is that there are only 1411 tigers left, guess  they do not like to be polluted.  

i was expected to wear a life jacket on the boat.  it was a warm day and i just told them no.  i mean there are these riotous roads, no seat belts anywhere, room for 2 lanes which people treat like 4,  everyone goes through red lights, they leave the bus doors wide open  and they want me to wear a life jacket on the boat.  they said it was an insurance thing. the lake was about 30 feet on each side of the boat and i could easily swim or hitchhike indian style with the next boat.  hmmm

i walked in my first food forest in kerala.   again ecotourism and i had to pay for a guide.  unfortunately the guide talked and talked.  finally i told him that i wanted to feel the food forest and could he be quiet.  he could not until i asked him to go stand 50 feet away from me.  anyway at that point i got to spend some time in the food forest.  it was quite magical.  i counted at least 60 different plants and i am sure that there were lots more.  they are treating the lower story with neem and tobacco for fungus problems.  they are putting cow dung and earth worm castings on the ground (it sounded like he said 1 liter per plant).  they like the save farm (not buschar save) were using drip irrigation which they said they turned on both morning and evening in the dry season.  one of  the monsoons is just now over so it was not the dry season yet.  the best news from that experience was that he told me about the university program where they were doing research on the plantations that were tended by the local tribes.  these have been growing for thousands of year.  so that is my project now to get myself to those two tribal plantations.

i worked with nick bottner down in yoncalla, oregon  in his orchards and he had a severe fungal problem where he had planted the trees much too close together.  his aim was to have as many varieties as possible, so his version of his fungal problem was that he did not have time to prune the trees 

at any rate it seems that thinking like buschar save the problem with the cardamon is not the fungus so much as it is not knowing the ratio to plant the trees so they shade the plants but do not block the ventilation.  all these things to figure out if you do it by planning and thinking (as opposed to letting the trees and plants tell you).  but reminding me that a lot can and does go wrong.  

that reminds me, i was reading in the book about buschar save about the huge amount of  organic matter he brought in from outside his farm in the first 10 years.  he brought in trash from the nearly town until plastic made it unusable and he took out the silt from a community pond for many years.   he did not start like he is recommending to us with what he had on the farm.  he started more like these organic farmers are doing with a lot of loading up of organic matter.   i still believe his theory is a good one, that we can use minimums that we grow on our farm and turn our soil into a golden goose that feeds us for 7 generations (or more) , but it is quite a job to figure out just how to do it.  we want some kind of production while we are building our soil.  as i said previously he strongly indicates that too much watering is part of the problem or rather that watering a lot increases the need for imports.

i went again yesterday to walk in an organic food forest which they call plantations here.  it was the same company, Deepa,  although in a different place.  this time i got a lot of time to be with the trees.  apparently these deepa folks find that it is worth their time to charge the tourists for tours and grow their real outputs somewhere else.  i did not see them in either place using the mounds of accumulated debris that i saw at bhuskar save’s place.  again there are a lot more plants growing here.

 more on the  tribal food forests which are still managed in the traditional way:  i was told i needed an english translator and to connect with the peechi research station.  anyway the english speaking woman is helping me.  she also referred me to the cathoic priest of the local church complex and he is referring me to a priest who is working with another tribal folk, other than the one the peechi research station is working with, so hopefully within a few days i will be in that food forest.

i left mumbi about a week ago and took a train to  ernakalum  in kerala.  it is a lot wealthier than the parts of delhi that i saw, and almost no trash what a relief.  also no dogs or cows or goats either.    i had taken a 3 AC train class for the first time.  what a difference.  no 20 hawkers an hour going through the train.  in fact maybe only 1-2 people an hour going through the compartment  to the restroom.  no 15 people in 8 seats.  in fact in my compartment meant for 8 there were only 3 of us.   i paid the extra money for the lower 1st class train because i had a pretty bad cold and wanted to treat myself but did not know how much better it would be.  i hate air conditioning, but the peace was worth it.  the two gentlemen in my compartment shared their concerns about global warming, which were that the summers were lots hotter making them unbearable and less water from the monsoons were hurting agriculture.

on the train, my eyes were watering, my nose streaming fluids and my head was aching so i did not see much.  however there were several river deltas where i saw what looked like chinopas.  millions  of tea plants.  they must go out on boats to harvest the tea.  another delta about 5 km away had the same configuration of land in the river mouth but there was no tea growing there.  also the profusion of plants was much more jungle like about twice the profusion of plants as on the east coast of india.

i left ernakalum quickly, city as it is.   i got on a bus going up to thekkadi where there is a wild tiger preserve and the hill country with  lots of agroforestry.  it seemed like 150 km before i was out of the city.  there were small areas of agroforestry in between the suburbs of the city.  right about 150 km my heart quickened.    all of a sudden there were trees with many levels and variations of plants.  coconut trees, teak trees, silver oak trees, banana trees, cardamon, nutmeg, hibiscus, tea plants etc.   i thought coconuts only grew on the coast, but they grow all the way almost to the highest points.  the last 1000 feet it is apparently too cold for them.  these magnificent food forests on the hills  felt like home to me.  there is no terracing just planting in the hills, except for tea.  tea seems to be planted on about 2 foot wide terraces so that each row of plants has their own level.  

on most of the bus ride we went along a steadily rising valley.  the side we were on was all planted with food forest with houses,  again fairly wealthy compared with other rural parts of india.  (nice wood shutters, fancy roof tiles, some lovely sloping upward roofs i associate with thailand,  etc. still the same either concrete or concrete covered brick structures)  for  100 km on the opposite side of the valley was forest with very tall hills and steep rock faces.   then all of a sudden there were food forests on both sides.  there had been a large hydroelectric project including a dam.  and it was after this backed up water that the other side was developed.  there also were houses over there so a road must go over there at that point.  do not know if the sun angle changed, the soil changed, the steepness of the lope changed, or it was the water and the road that allowed the food forests to grow on the other side of the valley.  quite a site.

the bus was interesting, freight on the top including vegetables, mainly a full bus with folks getting on and off at all kinds of little village areas.  then after school a lot of students came on for standing room only and rode 20-25 km to go home  this made the total on bus with a 50 capacity of about 80 people.  here i am holding on to everything i can hold onto, making my plans for when the bus finally goes off the road (jumping out the window) and i look over to see to the right and left of me, the indian ladies sleeping, hmmm. . .  i kept thinking i could figure out a way to stabilize myself, but still have not figured it out, maybe trying to figure it out is the problem.  maybe i should sit near the back of the bus, where i cannot see what is happening and close my eyes and see if i can fall asleep.

i am heading down to karala next.

went out to see the bamboo folks on saturday.  this area was another wonderful surprise about auroville.  it is called the industrial area  it has a lot of sites relating to what i would called industrious endeavors.  as always in auroville it is a lot of lovely jungle with a small 8 foot wide road running through.  on each side of the road were various endeavors including companies making musical instruments, spiralina, herb potions, bamboo products and many others.  it was a long ways from auroville center in another direction.

at the bamboo place which you can google at auroville bamboo, india, there had a showroom maybe 50 x 30 which had lots of bamboo products, bed frames, couch frames, chair frames, table frames, clothes, model trains, a lot of stuff that is usually made out wood.  they are growing bamboo there that are special coastal varieties.  at that point they are probably 10 km from the coast.  they gather about 60% of their material locally.  this is fairly low grade material that they use when bamboo does not have to be straight.  they buy the rest of the bamboo that they use for furniture construction.  a man their told me of his trip to karula (the western side of india, about even with us here to gather bamboo seed.  he says that the bamboo goes to seed somewhere between 1 and 120 years and no one knows when that will be.  after they seed they die.  anyway he gathered all this seed ad planted bamboo seed to grow some of the varieties that they grow.  they have a small plot though so not too much bamboo growing, more of a demonstration.  they have been working with auroville to get a larger plot where they can grow a significant amount of bamboo.  their main mission is to train youth to produce the bamboo products so that they can make a living for themselves (meaning the youth).

on leaving the bamboo place i trotted off to new territory.  i went in the direction of an indian village nearby  i love to walk in india but do not like to go on the main roads (more about this later).  i found a lovely village, quite clean unlike the cities and larger villages, where throwing trash is a throw it out wherever you are attitude here.  the village had some huts which look like traditional tamil buildings which are made from wood or bamboo covered with coconut leaves.  the coconut leaves evidently stop rain for 3 years.  very heartening to me was a plot maybe 1/2 -1 acre of coconut trees with rows and rows of eggplant interplanted.  it was great to see what appeared to be a village farmer growing serious food  it was not mulched, so was probably tilled, but still this is a traditional way of growing, with the plants right under the trees.  (plenty of light in the tropics allows this.  

anyway i got lost as i almost always do on my treks.  a woman asked me where i was going and i told her and she redirected me.  so i got to walk many more miles out in this countryside.  almost no crops growing but a lot of available land. 

want to talk about the roads.  so these roads were maybe 10 feet wide and as there was no real traffic quite pleasant to walk on. wanted to talk about the indians monkeyness a bit.  this is not intended to be politically incorrect but rather to capture something about the indian people i have met.  they have an organic way of being where their bodies and whatever they are connecting to seem to become one.  they eat with their right hand and it is almost quicker than the eye can follow how they take the chapati in hand gather some grain, some soup, some vegetable and put in their mouth.  i have seen them driving along, talking on the cell phone and seen something go wrong with the tuk, tuk and seen them fix it all in the same kind of organic motion.  i have spoken with some of the folks at auroville about this and they say yes they do have this quality and also another one which is very passive.  in other words if they consider the fix out of their domain they\ will do a work around just as quickly.  the boundaries between people are almost nonexistent.  this is the reason that 15 of them can fit into a a place on the train meant for 9.  anyway on the road it makes for a chaotic scene.  when i walk along they come within inches of me.  just this morning i stepped right to avoid a cow pattie and a bicycle almost ran me down.  anyway all of these tuk, tuks, bicycles, cars, trucks, buses go along the road missing each other by inches, all apparently very comfortable for these monkeyish folks.

i went out to sabhana forest again to hear their spiel for their friday night tour.  it was very heartening.  a lot of the ideal of auroville involves a gift economy, people doing what they love and trusting they will be taken care of.  although in the rest of auroville they are charging money.  at sabhana forest they rely on gifts.    it seems this philosophy has worked well for these folk.  they brought 100 of us out for their friday night talk on buses, told us what they were up to, fed us and showed us an ecomovie.  they have expanded to several small other communities in india and to kenya and haiti as well.

their work on this 70 acre site is to bring back the ecosystem that was wiped out. they base their system on ahimsa and believe this means a vegan diet.  they live in the tamil fashion, again coconut leaves over bamboo.  their main unit is a magificant 3 story affair where i sat on a very hot day experiencing a cool and comfortable climate.  they cook with rocket stoves to use minimal wood.  they have a very fancy system of compost for humanure that involves finally placing the humanure on the forest trees.   they are not growing  hardly any food here.  this i believe is a mistake.  what if the ecosystem could include at least some fruit.  this is an old argument of course.  it just seems that sustainability without food growing is not sustainable. 

they practice unschooling.  this means to them that the kids do not have to study anything.  folks who want to work with the children ask them what they want to learn and act as facilitators for that learning, rather than agendas for what the kids need.

their mission here in auroville is to recreate the ecosystem that has been almost wiped out by folks harvesting all the wood from the forests.  they are doing a lot of water works including digging large ponds again all over auroville to bring the water table up.  the person that gave me a tour had disdain for the acacia tree from australia which is springing up all over.  he did mention that one small area where they had got the trees in the proper balance, the acacias had died out.

this acacia of course can grow with a lot less water and has the job in addition to or because of being nitrogen fixing  of growing where nothing else will to bring back the soil.  (sorry my simplistic version) .  in permaculture we use these trees for chop and drop in such places as palestine where water is very low and desert is so basic that supposedly fruit trees will not grow.  and voila with these and other  “forest trees” the fruit food forest grows and produces fruit.

i was  reading in the book about bhasta save’s work, vision of natural farming about a dry land rotation near him.  i realized that what i had done wrong in my acre  last year was to water.  i should have spent the time watering mulching everything that was growing.  then the weeds would not have taken over, making my one acre impossible for me to take care of.   we forget that the plants have many ways to get deep watering in a no till situation.  as in the forest you see many baby trees growing without water.  even though i had tilled initially, if there was time with rain after that tilling, i could have relied on the ground water if i had mulched.  the other thing i learned was that when i do pull weeds i usually drop them right where i weed them.  now i would collect enough weeds t make at least 3 inches high.  bringing in mulch for the rest of the plants.

i met some folks at solitude who were visiting from near mombai.  they work with an ngo which is working with a low caste group, who in the past could not own land and are fisherman and try to get other jobs. insert italian guy on ngos

they  told the story of the place where they are serving  about 5 hours outside of mumbai where most of the trees have been cut down for wood or charcoal.  then desertification happens.  in certain places dams are built to grow large scale crops and for resorts, in this case mainly for folks from mombai.  there is an indian ngo that has been in place for 25 years working with these folks.  they are mainly trying to get them food allotments from the indian government.  he wants to find something that they can do independently.  a woman in a nearby village has figured out a way to make stoves that use little wood from cow dung and earth.  he would like to have them learn skills to make and market these stoves which would be a many win situation.  so lovely to be in a place where folks are making deep changes for what seems to be the betterment of all of us.

this is my last day at auroville.  am leaving tomorrow for mombai (british called it bombay).  going from almost the southwest tip of india (pundacherry) to near the last place still touching the sea in the northwest  of india.  will see if i can get a train, (there is a 5% limit on tourists on trains so often we must schedule way ahead) but might fly because of my back, also not sure if i am up for another 48 hour train ride just now.  they do have a disabilities car and if i can get on that, will go for it.

this week has been amazing.  my back is slowing improving allowing me to visit a lot of the farms and more than visit have the energy to take it all in.

solitude farm.  solitude is 6 acres of land seems like 5 acres food production, the rest is in a guest house, some huts tamil style, which is often bamboo with coconut leaves for a roof which keeps out the water.  he also some land dedicated to music festivals.  he has a farm combing a lot of his interests, music and natural farming.  

https://www.facebook.com/solitudefarm

krisna has recently opened an organic restaurant to show folks living in and visiting auroville about local foods.  he also has a csa for aurovillians to learn about food production.  he has what seemed to me to be  a lot of 15 year old banana trees and is growing a lot of rice, other grains and vegetables in amongst them.  he has a well which was powered until this year with his windmill and solar, but this year added electricity so as not to miss the critical time for watering the rice during the flowering stage.

krisna represents the local farm serving the local community, he is maximally using everything he loves including his music.  i asked him if any of the indians have taken an interest in  his farm ad he said his main assistant is developing his own sense of what is needed and getting good at it.   my own predilection for of course is  a demonstration farm would work more with the indians to start having their own farms.  especially true in auroville, where after 45 years there seems to be plenty of water and a lot of land lying fallow.  i was delighted to hear krisna talking about some of his students growing potatoes at a time when he had tried to grow potatoes and because it was too hot, they had not succeeded when he grew them.  she had planted them under the banana trees and they did well even though it was  too hot out in the open.,  i loved it that he was learning from the folks that worked with him.

 i got a new insight about natural farming from this farm.  in permaculture (or maybe i should say in my vision of permaculture) we are looking to have an established all perennial growth like an end stage forest  system.  

in natural farming they are looking to grow crops in a way that can be repeated for centuries, if water is not easily available then without additional water, growing the grains and vegetables that they eat.  so while they are still doing no till they are planting every year and here where it is fairly tropical, they can plant everything under trees.   i have heard for years that this is not possible in the u.s.  i say that is poppycock.  we just cannot take the rotations they use and the seed varieties they use without refining the system to work for us. certainly we do not have the light they have here.   i believe it is just like a food forest, it would take 1000 years to do it by the scientific, trial and error or isolating method.  by using intuition, listening to the plant we could figure it out in 3-5 years.

i got to auroville about noon on sunday.  it is an island in the storm so to speak.  founded under sri aurobindo’s vision to form an international community where no one culture dominated, my first impression was of beauty and cleanliness, so missing up until then in my india experience.  it is 20 kilometers in all directions.