New Indigenous Mango tree variety - Thrissurkkaran - planted in front of the house

 I have planted one more indigenous mango variety called Thrissurkkaran in front of the house. This mango seed was collected last year and it has been growing in the terrace for an year now. Planted and cut and mulched grass around it and there was some spoiled straw around, that also spread around it. This was found by 'Nadan Mavukal' facebook group and has been promoting it since this is a regular early bearer and a very tasty variety.

22-June-2025

Stylosanthes Hamata and rice

 I had been growing Stylosanthes Hamata in a small patch in backyard garden. It survived summer and with rain, it established well and there were not much other weeds in that patch. Hence wanted to try rice sowing in that patch, not sure how it will compete with grass. Even after cutting it will come back and rice plants will take more time to come above. The seeds were of Rakthashali and put that in water for 24 hours and sown in the place and cut and mulched the grass.

28-June-2025

Rice seedlings are growing,and stylo mulch gives good weed control. I should have put more seeds, since generally in direct broadcasting, lots of seeds gets lost due to various reasons. Stylo does not grow back very aggressively, hence rice does not have good competition. There is heavy rain now, which may be holding stylo back,typically leguminous species does not like much water, while grass varieties goes unaffected, that is a good combination

07-July-25

So far weed control has been very good, rice seedlings are coming up, some weeds are seen, but not weeded yet.

Managing bamboo which have thorns

I have a bamboo variety which is very common in Kerala and this has thorns on it. I got this saplings when I attended one session in Yuvakshethra college Mundur. I didn't realise the difficulty in managing this species when grown up. It would have been close 9 years since I planted and it grew to a big clump. Few years back, I sold it to a person who cut its small branches which will be used for making fence.

I like any biomass creating trees, but this was just difficult to cut with that thorns,cut few of the poles with chain saw, but were not able to pull out them so just left it as it is. Compared to this I like all the bamboo varieties which are thornless and easy to cut.

New flower introduced to farm - Peacock flower - Rajamalli - caesalpinia pulcherrima

Recently planted Rajamalli flower plant in the farm. Seeds were collected from National High way to Coimbatore where in the middle lots of these plants are planted. This has thorns and hence are very drought resistant. In summer these plants are not seen at all and suddenly with rain they just come back. It looks like flowers and seeds has poison in it and hence has to be careful.

Leguminous cover crops - Hedge Lucern and Stylo Santhes Hamata

 I am introducing two more perennial leguminous cover crops into the system - Hedge Lucern (locally called as Velimasal) and Stylo santhes hamata. Had tried both in the last rainy season, hedge lucern sown last time is germinating this year and it grows well. When cut many more branches comes and seeds also is formed and these germinates readily. Whether they will etsatblish quite well and will be established as a monocrop will have to be seen, that is not a preferred method.

Stylo santhes hamata need much care, a small patch was done at home, that was growing well and it survived summer also. As of now, this grows to less than a feet so can be a good covercrop to grow with rice also, to be seen.

These seeds were bought from Amazon India, 1 Kg Stylo Santhes Hamata - 524/ and 500gm Hedge Lucern - 609/

This is Stylo santhes hamata grown in backyard

Fodder grass cutting

 Reason for growing fodder grass is that it creates lots of biomass,in rainy season in every 3 weeks, it should be ready for cutting and it is perennial and in summer it just withers but does not turn grey completely, slight greenish color will be there. Since I don't water in summer, would like to cover the ground with a thick cover of mulch and fodder grass helps in that. Its mulch decomposes slowly also. Earlier I used to cut and collect the mulch at the base of fruit trees, now I just leave it at there.

31-May-2025

Those bunches are the fodder grass

would like to see when this area become ready to cut again

Tools for cutting grass

 I keep searching and using effective cutting tools for grass cutting. I have been using Scythe for long time, but now in lots of places, I have fodder grass which is bit difficult to cut with Scythe since it is very thick and strong at the base, also it is like a bunch and hence cutting with Scythe becomes bit tedious. Recently visited a tools shop in Kulappully,Shornur,Palakkad and they had a grass cutting sickle. Long handle around 2 feet and they make it from leafes of vehicles and hence they say it is very sharp and retains it.

2nd one from bottom is a very good tool, it is light weight and very sharp and hence ideal for cutting fodder grass, only issue is that if there are thicker bushes and if you cut it using this one, it may get damaged. Once one piece of it just went off, while cutting a thicker one.

This tool is ideal for clearing pathways and small grass.

04-June-2025

Measured weight of these , top one is lightest 350gms,next 400gms and next 450gms. Weights make lot of difference 300-350gms should be the ideal weight. It can be used very comfortably, even quickly changing direction of cutting, I didn't feel comfortable with 400gms one.