Ginger for home consumption

Used to grow few Ginger plants every year, this year thought of growing it for an year of consumption. At the farm, sometime people used to dig and take it so got discouraged to grow it. So at home, tried it in 10 grow bag, started it in May-June time, which is the suggested time frame for ginger crop. Being in grow bag, could apply some compost and cowdung slurry and also kept the base clean without grass and also mulched with straw.

I am also growing it in couple of places in farm, they are also coming up well. Mulched them with fodder grass which takes long time to decompose and hence it looks good. Also in one place, applied mexican sunflower mulch which gets decomposed very quickly. Plan is to grow mulching material at each place so that mulching process is easy.

Green manure trees and shade

 Since I don't irrigate my farm, it gets badly affected in the summer. As I see, wherever there are shades coconut trees are not affected that much. So in this season, I tried to grow as many green manure trees as possible, there are multiple intentions...

- Mulch - to feed soil and also to cover soil from direct sun and rain

- Shade - I stop cutting trees after rain stops and allow them to grow so that they provide good shade in the summer

- Liquid carbon to soil - as per scientists trees provide liquid carbon to soil organisms through their roots

I have planted Glyricedia and Acasia Siamea (Manjakonna) and Moringa in different areas. Glyricedia is planted through cuttings and their survival rate is very low, Acasia Siamea is planted by growing seedlings and most of them survived. Moringa is also planted using cuttings and they also survive well.

Even though main rain season has ended, planning to grow around 100 glyricedia saplings from seed and plant them in the farm in the remaining rainy season. I also watched some regenerative agriculture videos and in one by Byron Grower says, plant as many pioneering species as possible, suggests to plant at every 75cms and cut and mulch. This looks to be very valid, since if there is too much disturbance, we can always cut them back.