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Vinitha and Nanda

@runamufarm

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🌳Organic, regenerative farming & food forest
📍Denkanikottai, TN

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Three months of competing with birds and collecting mulberries from three young mulberry bushes and freezing them has resulted in this measly quantity of yummy preserve. Adding the extremely sweet green/white mulberry meant adding less than one spoon of sugar to the mix :)
Before you come at me, I’ve left plenty for the birds in other bushes :p
Cannot wait to make more next year!
#foodpreservation #mulberry #mulberrypreserve #slowfoodmovement #veryslowfoodinthiscase by @runamufarm

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6 months ago

More food preservation stories from this season by @runamufarm

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7 months ago

We had a special (uninvited) guest last night 🐘. One who we actually saw for the first time while he was feasting away at our table. Chomped down the same peepal treeling for the fourth time! He even left us a pile of steaming hot cakes in return 💩 by @runamufarm

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7 months ago

Birbs, lately.
Thank you to everyone who helped me ID and confirmed IDs!

1. European bee-eater
2. Tree pipit
3. Common hoopoe
4. Grey bellied cuckoo (female)
5. Black rumped flameback
6. White bellied drongo
7. Yellow throated sparrow (female)
8. Yellow billed babbler
9. Grey wagtail
10. Rufous treepie
11. Oriental honey buzzard
12. Purple sunbird
13. Rosy starling
14. Brahminy starling
15. Rose ringed parakeet and common mynas
16. Black winged kite
17. Warbler (not sure which one)

#birdsofindia #birdsofeasternghats #birdsofkrishnagiri by @runamufarm

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7 months ago

Experiments in food preservation. More coming up! by @runamufarm

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9 months ago

Contentment in a jar.
Chemical-free, farm fresh tomatoes, sun dried, and made into a pesto with farm grown basil. by @runamufarm

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9 months ago

ಮಕರ ಸಂಕ್ರಾಂತಿ ಹಬ್ಬದ ಶುಭಾಶಯಗಳು!
Happy mid winter harvest to everyone celebrating! by @runamufarm

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9 months ago

Jungle myna murmuration this evening. They just wouldn’t stop! What a spectacle! There are thousands of them roosting in the wild zone behind our house this season.
Earphones recommended to hear the murmuration. by @runamufarm

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9 months ago

What I Stand For is What I Stand On.
These words that appear at the end of a Wendell Berry poem gave me everything I needed to summarise the many strands of thoughts swimming through my head regarding land stewardship. It’s also a great starting place for me to flesh out my relationship to the land.

In the months leading up to us buying this particular piece of land, it seemed like Nanda was in some kind of frenzy, spending every weekend coming to the same region with one of two agents we had been introduced to by my uncle. There was much joy and thrill when we found exactly what Nanda wanted. A small piece of land sharing a forest boundary. But very soon, for me, it turned into fears around human-animal conflict; a general feeling of being overwhelmed about how we would manage 6 acres without knowing anyone in the locality; and trepidation around the haste and impatience with which Nanda wanted to begin constructing a house here. In retrospect I’m glad for it.

It turned around pretty quickly for me with more frequent visits and walks around, stopping to notice wild flowers and the insects that lived here. We spent the extremely frosty winter of 2022 here in our shipping container home with a makeshift kitchen which gave us a deeper insight into the shifting of light, the direction of winds, the nocturnal sounds from the forest. The game changer was living here four days of the week once the house was ready and witnessing all the seasons; planting our first fruit trees and flower bushes; watching wild tree species regenerate and much more.

Thanks to greedy house owners who hiked up our rent in Bangalore, we made the decision to fully move here last year much to the apprehension of our families. We have since then developed a meaningful friendship with Thimmaraj, our farm worker, and his family. They look out for us in so many ways and we continue to learn so much about this land, our village and its neighbours, its natural and socio-cultural history from them. This has furthered our rootedness to this place. Truly, a land is nothing without its peoples.

[Contd. in comments] by @runamufarm

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9 months ago

Our first harvest of ragi at the farm, 3 generations apart. A primary grain before city life. #organic #ragi by @runamufarm

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10 months ago

Natural regeneration game is very strong in this patch of our land with a seasonal water source close to it. We have pongamia, ceylon boxwood, Albizias, jamun, wild jasmine, Bauhinia racemosa, Breynia vitis-idae, Bridelia retusa, Chukrasia tabularis, palash, ber/ezhandapazham, cluster fig, rosewood, Ehretia sp. all thriving and coexisting beautifully here.
Other patches of the land largely host white bark acacia, some Terminalia sp, Cassia fistula (in plenty!), a great diversity of grasses and some shrubs I’m yet to ID.
Learning to ID plants and trees is a very important exercise in regenerative farming - to evaluate the eco-region you live in, the biodiversity amidst you and to be able to make space for them in the midst of cultivated plants. by @runamufarm

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10 months ago

Winter planting bed preparation!
We first made our own activated charcoal by fermenting crushed charcoal with water and organic material for about 15 days. Thimmaraj then poured this microbe and carbon rich liquid over the damp beds. We next added a generous layer of Mexican sunflower cuttings and some composted honge leaves before covering the entire bed with coconut fronds. Now we wait 18-21 days before planting. The patch we’ve worked on gave us very poor yield and bitter root vegetables last winter. Really hoping this new experiment amends the soil.
Any and all suggestions welcome :)
#experimentingwithsoil #soilhealthisplanetaryhealth #permaculturelife by @runamufarm

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a year ago