This year has been eye opening for a lot of us. Many have learned to be closer to their loved ones, many have learned to handle their mental health issues. A lot of us lost and gained new jobs; in the process, working on our skill sets and our abilities, dreams and goals.
This year, I worked on many goals that I have wanted to accomplish for a long time. Mohit helped me start one of these goals in a wonderful farm project in Asu, Maharashtra. We, at the Pink Tree Project, have been able to tie hands with an organic farm to create food forests!
Food forests are an effort, an innovative way of farming brought in by the schools of permaculture and natural farming in our ecosystem. Lush, abundant expanses of food growing crops, still maintaining their wilderness and charm, food forests are a rich biodiversity and add to the ecosystem gains by intertwining various food crops that help each other; while still being entirely useful. Imagine a whole forest that you can eat?!
Amazing, right? So, we got the chance to start our very own project in Asu; I was so, so excited about it. My very first step towards sustainable living; a chance to get my hands soiled for the best reasons. Mother Earth provides us with everything we so excitedly consume and exhaust. It is now time to give back with love, with care and with consideration. Judiciously using resources in a sustainable manner; for us today, and for many more tomorrows!
This happened just a couple of months ago, right after the rash rains our state has had to endear this year. In order for the land to be cultivable, we needed the soil to dry. So we made efforts to constantly shift and mix it up. The first step to this goal was drying and airing the soil; prepping it for beautiful growing potential. Clearing wild grass and weeding the soil were part of the process. Once this was done, we began excavating the land in the North East corner of the land to begin our auspicious journey guided by Vastu Shastra (the humble hindu science of energies and their effects on our lives). Excess irrigation water would automatically get stored into this reservoir, instead of clogging the crop or washing away. Eliminate waste and collect for the future!
Once this was completed, we began levelling the land to be able to plant seeds and crops. We visited a nursery close by to select our saplings; Baramati was full of nurseries and we chose the Desi Saplings Nursery to learn about the difference between desi and hybrid varieties.
Chickpeas are a common ingredient for many to use, and we began with this crop. The perfect protein catch for a vegetarian; chickpeas were our choice to begin with. A cleaning and protecting treatment was carried out before we began planting it in the soil. The seeds were then distributed uniformly along the plot for the beginning of a rich, organic journey. The next stop for our planting is the much-loved and power-rich rajgira. To be honest, this is an effort to be able to grow ingredients that would come in use for common nutrition products, and I hope to include them into my own product line very soon. After all, a few steps now become big steps in the future!
My favourite part of learning during the start of this project was the creation of a natural fertilizer called Jeevamrut – made of two words ‘Jeevan’ and ‘Amrut”. It is an amalgamation of various elements and is an excellent source of natural carbon, Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Potassium and other very important micronutrients. This natural manure is being used to feed extra nutrition to our crop; because just like us, plants also need to snack!
This is only just the beginning of our wonderful journey with nature, forests and the environment. We look forward to expanding our crop in major ways and hope to spread the word and knowledge. Because natural is whole and whole is what we truly need for our nutrition. Humans tear down forests to create fields; I ask, why not combine both to create something extremely beautiful? After all, our devices will die on us one day; but nature and biodiversity are the only evolving elements of our lives!
Written By Gouri Gupta
Week 52, December ’20
