Farm house has been rennovated...added sitout at the front and backside...all the wooden doors and windows replaced with steel doors and windows since termite damaged most of the old doors and windows and snakes started crawling in.
Visitors are welcome now...there is limited space, may be maximum 4 people can stay..there is electricity and water now...
I am finding that ash guard is an easy crop, if it is grown at the beginning of rainy season, it just grows well and you should make sure that it has some place to climb and there is enough sunlight.
I usually grow it at home and with a single string it climbs all the way to terrace and spreads there and produces enough fruits. This time did same thing at the farm, allowed it to climb on a tamarind tree and it produced 4 fruits so far, photos coming up soon.
For next season no till will be done with fodder grass mulch. Fodder grass has been growing in the field at around 8 feet apart rows. Also growing the same in nearby areas, so that there is enough mulch, but still it looks like more fodder grass may be required to cover the 0.1Acre area completely.
Cut the grass growing in the field and also fodder grass and mulched. Also planted some lablab beans seeds here and there and in one field cowpea seeds.
Plan is to cut and mulch the fodder grass in every month and also clear the grasses which is coming up so that next year will have a clean ground to start with and put the rice seeds in seed balls in advance so that they come with rain.
These dogs were guarding me when myself and Palani were clearing the grass. It took 3 days work to clear the complete area.
I used to grow happy hill rice in grow bag on terrace. While counting the rice grains from a single plant, found that each head is easily 200 grains, like that 3-4 heads are there from each plant. Assuming 3 heads, we get 600 grains from a single plant, this is very conservative calculation, it can easily go upto 1000 from a single plant.
I was thinking if the productivity is so much growing food should be manageable. The major task in rice farming is about weeding in 0.1 acre and this has to be done at least twice. I thought this should be doable even if I have to do it by myself.
Mulching can be done in advance to make sure that weeds does not grow, this has to be monitored closely and if there are some areas with more weeds, that area has to be mulched more.
Some more calculations...
Average weight of a rice grain is 20mg, as per AI of Whatsapp. If we sow 500 gms of seeds and the productivity of each plant is 600 grains, simple calculation would give 600 * 500 gms = 300,000gms i.e 300Kgs. This is assuming all the plants survive and all give 600 grains. Anyway we have discounted to 600 grains, which can be boosted to even 800, if we think practically. At least 250Kgs should be a reasonable harvest to achieve.
1 acre is 43560 sqft, and 0.1 acre is 4356 sqft, if we have 500gms and each grain is 20mg, there are 25000 grains...i.e 25000 plants in 4356 sqft, i.e 5.7 plants in per sqft, which is quite reasonable.
Also we have to make sure that field is completely covered with mulch in the summer and before sowing remove all the weeds manually, there will be minimum if there is good amount of mulch.
Fukuoka san always aligned with nature's way in the farming. He observed nature and made sure that crop seeds germinate when they naturally germinate in nature. That way nature provides protection for the crops. One example to this was that, when I planted turmeric in raised beds they never used to do very good, mainly because I put them when soil is sufficiently wet after the rain, so in this case mostly they would be germinating in the storage area itself, later grows in the soil. But now I can see some unharvested turmeric grows very well, when they germinate at the right time and grows well. Being root crops, they never gets overgrown by weeds.
Similarly you see rice seeds germinate on the road sides, they grow well, because the germination is at the right time, then they grow with weeds and survive. When we artificially put the seeds, then they are mostly delayed and loose in competition with weeds. So next time, for rice, planning to put seed balls and keep them in soil so that they germinate at the right time.
Lady's finger which grew from seeds fallen from last year
Happy hill rice harvested from 1st crop was sown again in the backyard. Cleaned the area thoroughly to remove all the grass and spread some cowdung and sown the seeds and spread farm made compost and then spread the cut grass. One variety of grass which grows from each cut piece was removed from mulching. Sowing was completed on 24-Aug-2024.
30-Aug-2024
