APRIL 2015

By Daily Diary

Wednesday April 1st

 

WEATHER; hot and humid.

 

VOLUNTEERS; Vera, Veda, Sammy, Spiros, Ree, Josh, Elumalai, Sudo, Emalie with Rajan, Pierre and Priya

 

WORK COMPLETED

 

  1. We picked basil and beans.
  2. We took some topsoil off one of the beds in the Souryan garden. This was a heavy job but we did it to get some soil for the nursery as the soil on the bed was starting to get too high for the raised bed. First we weeded the bed and then took the soil off and put it in a separate pile in a shady place. We completed about a third of the bed.
  3. We then cleared, composted and mulched a bed in Le Jardin which we started to plant with basil.

 

Thursday April 2nd

 

WEATHER; rather grey, hot and humid, but with a breeze.

 

VOLUNTEERS; Vera, Veda, Sammy, Spiros, Ree, Josh, Elumalai, Sudo, Emilie, Lauren, Rohin with Rajan, Pierre and Priya

 

WORK COMPLETED

 

  1. We finished taking off the topsoil from one of the beds in the Souryan garden. I was so pleased as all the volunteers on the job got into a really good rhythm which meant they were able to finish without everyone feeling too tired. We also have a satisfyingly large pile of good soil that will be used in the nursery.
  2. We finished planting basil seedlings in Le Jardin on the bed that we started yesterday.
  3. We cleared and composted a bed in the seed garden that we planted with roccolla and a few maize plants that had been left over.
  4. We cleared, composted and mulched a bed in the Pryog garden which we then planted with basil seedlings.
  5. We changed one of the beds in Le Jardin from sprinklers (which, as well as being enjoyed by the lettuces also gave the weeds on the path a wonderful boost!) to drip irrigation which is much less messy with the water.

 

Friday April 3rd

 

WEATHER; hot and humid, but with a breeze.

 

VOLUNTEERS; Vera, Veda, Sammy, Spiros, Ree, Josh, Elumalai, Sudo, Emilie, Lauren, Pavitra with Rajan, Pierre and Priya

 

WORK COMPLETED

 

  1. We picked maize, roccolla,beans and chilli
  2. We planted the bed in the Souryan garden that we prepared yesterday. About two thirds of the bed we planted with beans and the rest with a mixture of snake gourd, lukki and basil.
  3. We cleared, composted and mulched a bed in Le Jardin and planted it with bassella spinach – about two thirds – and the rest with pumpkins.
  4. Rajan put in the irrigation for the beds in the cashew orchard and Pierre started mending a climbing frame in the Souryan garden.

 

Monday April 6th

 

WEATHER; hot and humid, and got rather overcast once work finished.

 

VOLUNTEERS;   Veda, Sammy, Spiros, Elumalai, Emilie, Lauren, Elumalai, Mahendran, Chris, Michael with Pierre and Priya

 

WORK COMPLETED

 

  1. We picked basil, maize, beans, brinjal and papaya.
  2. Over the weekend I did some grass cutting so for the next few days I want to clear up various areas in the garden. Today we focused on the seed garden, weeding, composting and mulching five beds so they are now ready to plant. We also weeded a bed with sweet potato seedlings and mulched it.
  3. We cleared a maize bed in Le Jardin, using the stalks to make a base for our next lot of compost.

 

Tuesday April 7th

 

WEATHER; hot and humid.

 

VOLUNTEERS;   Veda, Sammy, Spiros, Emilie, Lauren, Alexandra, Mahendran, Chris, Yumi, Kaya, Pavitra with Pierre and Priya

 

WORK COMPLETED

 

  1. We picked ladies finger that we had not got around to picking yesterday.
  2. We cleared composted and mulched a bed in Le Jardin which we then planted with the rest of the basil seedlings and some pumpkins.
  3. We planted pumpkins on the back of a bed in Le Jardin that we had planted with bassella spinach. There is now nothing left in the nursery to plant out on beds.
  4. We weeded a basil bed that we then de-seeded and mulched.
  5. Pierre cleared beds in Vayu Bhoomi and then burnt a lot of rubbish including the finished tomato plants from the beds that he had cleared.

 

Wednesday April 8th

 

WEATHER; hot and humid.

 

VOLUNTEERS;   Veda, Josh, Spiros, Emilie, Lauren, Alexandra, Mahendran, Yumi, Kaya, with Pierre, Rajan and Priya

 

WORK COMPLETED

 

  1. We picked roccolla, brinjal, beans and papaya.
  2. We continued making the compost heap that we started yesterday. We are now about half way.
  3. We watered all the trees in Jalabhoomi.

 

Thursday April 9th

 

WEATHER; hot and humid.

 

VOLUNTEERS;   Veda, Josh, Spiros, Emilie, Lauren, Alexandra, Yumi, Kaya, Cody, Emma, Vipti, Alex, Nitish, Sammy, Mirra, Elumalai with Pierre and Priya

 

WORK COMPLETED

 

  1. We spent the first part of the morning getting green material for the compost heap. We weeded and cut the tops off a bed in the Pryog garden that had sweet potato cutting on it. We cleared a bed in the Pryog garden and also cut some glyricidea leaves.
  2. We composted and mulched a bed in the Pryog garden which is now ready for planting as soon as the pumpkins come up in the nursery.
  3. We continued making the compost heap that we were doing yesterday. We are about three quarters finished.
  4. We cleared up a lot of plastic rubbish around the temple at the front of Buddha Garden. It looks beautiful but I question whether anyone will notice the difference. There is another area nearby which was covered in plastic rubbish and although we started to clear it up I fear it is a dumping place. If we clear it up, more plastic will be dumped and we cannot cope with disposing of what we pick up.
  5. Pierre pruned a lot of trees around Buddha Garden including the Pongamia tree near the nursery. Unfortunately his beautiful new pruning device did not work as well as it should owing to a design fault.

 

Friday April 10th

 

WEATHER; hot and humid, but with some lovely breezes later on.

 

VOLUNTEERS;   Veda, Josh, Spiros, Emilie, Lauren, Alexandra, Nitish, Sammy, Kathy with Pierre and Priya

 

WORK COMPLETED

 

  1. We picked beans, maize and brinjal.
  2. We cleared a bed in the Pryog garden and then composted and mulched it ready to plant.
  3. We took all the green material we had accumulated from clearing the bed and used it to finish off making the compost heap that we have been working on all week.
  4. We checked all the drippers on a bed in Le Jardin as the basil plants looked as if they were drying out. The drippers were not too bad so I expect the seedlings were suffering from the hot sun we are getting these days.
  5. We planted French basil seedlings in the seed garden.
  6. We harvested some basil seeds.
  7. This morning our team of roof workers turned up to start re-thatching the roof on top of the office. They have taken all the old thatch (called keet here) down and everything is now ready to put up the new keet tomorrow.

 

Monday April 13th

 

WEATHER; we had a little rain last night but it was again hot and humid this morning with quite a lot of cloud.

 

VOLUNTEERS;   Veda, Josh, Spiros, Emilie, Lauren, Alexandra, Nitish, Sammy, Cody, Elumalie with Pierre, Rajan and Priya

 

WORK COMPLETED

 

  1. We picked basil, pumpkins, ladies finger, maize, beans and brinjal.
  2. We cleared a bed in Le Jardin which we composted, mulched and then checked the drippers.

 

Wednesday April 15th

 

WEATHER; heavy rain last night so the earth full of moisture this morning.

 

VOLUNTEERS;   Veda, Lauren, Alexandra, Nitish, Sammy, Elumalie with Pierre, and Priya

 

WORK COMPLETED

 

  1. We picked pumpkins, beans and roccolla.
  2. We planted bassella spinach and pumpkins on two beds in the Pryog garden.
  3. We cleared, composted and mulched three intermittent beds in the Vayu Bhoomi orchard and planted them with pumpkins.

 

Thursday April 16th

 

WEATHER; hot and humid.

 

VOLUNTEERS;   Veda, Lauren, Alexandra, Nitish, Elumalie, Spiros, Enrique with Pierre, and Priya

 

WORK COMPLETED

 

  1. We prepared soil for the nursery.
  2. We weeded a basil bed in the Souryan garden and then re-mulched it with leaves.
  3. We planted bassella spinach and pumpkin on two beds in the seed garden.
  4. We tied up most of the snake gourd, lukki and bean plants that needed tying up in the Souryan garden.
  5. We took some bean seeds out of their dried up pods – the seed will then go in the fridge to be saved until we need it.

 

Friday April 17th

 

WEATHER; hot and humid which got worse as it clouded over later in the morning.

 

VOLUNTEERS;   Veda, Lauren, Alexandra, Nitish, Sammy Spiros, Enrique with Pierre, and Priya

 

WORK COMPLETED

 

  1. We planted a prepared bed in Le Jardin with ladies finger seedlings.
  2. We de-seeded a bed of basil in Le Jardin.
  3. We planted a lot of left over plants – ladies finger and bassella spinach in the seed garden which is now completely planted.
  4. We picked beans, pumpkin, brinjal and ladies finger.
  5. We finished tying up plants in the Souryan garden that we started doing yesterday and continued to untangle the string that we bought and making it into usable balls.

 

Monday April 20th

 

WEATHER; hot and very humid.

 

VOLUNTEERS;   Veda, Lauren, Alexandra, Nitish, Mahi, Tadash, Spiros with Pierre, and Priya

 

WORK COMPLETED

 

  1. We picked pumpkin, ladies finger, maize and basil.
  2. We cleared composted and then mulched a bed in the Pryog garden which we then planted with amaranth.

 

Tuesday April 21st

 

WEATHER; hot and very humid.

 

VOLUNTEERS;   Veda, Lauren, Alexandra, Ines, Nitish, Spiros with Pierre, and Priya

 

WORK COMPLETED

 

  1. We weeded a bed and a half in the Souryan garden.
  2. Then we used the weeds to make liquid fertiliser.
  3. We tied up half a bed of beans that had been overlooked. This meant the plants were very big and already climbing around each other on the bed. We hope that by putting up string the plants will find a way to climb up. If they do that they produce more.
  4. We almost finished untangling and rolling up all the string that we recently bought.

 

Wednesday April 22nd

 

WEATHER; hot and humid clouding up after breakfast.

 

VOLUNTEERS;   Veda, Lauren, Alexandra, Ines, Nitish, Spiros, Momo with Pierre, and Priya

 

WORK COMPLETED

 

  1. We picked brinjal, beans and papaya.
  2. Those not picking spent the whole of the work time in Jalabhoomi. We mulched trees with the keet that came off the office roof when we changed the thatch. One place we mulched was a steep bank where the water hopefully won’t now wash quite so much of the soil away. We also mulched a corner of the field where the soil is very clay and gets very hard in this hot weather. We also repaired some of the mosquito net ‘tents’ that we have put over the amla trees to stop them getting eaten by goats. We also tried to block some of the holes in the fence with thorns to stop goats getting through. Hopefully it will have some effect although at this time of year when they are very hungry, as there isn’t much grass to eat, I have my doubts about it. Lovely job to do on Earth day.

 

Thursday April 23rd

 

WEATHER; hot and humid.

 

VOLUNTEERS;   Veda, Lauren, Alexandra, Ines, Nitish, Spiros, Phillippo with Pierre, and Priya

 

WORK COMPLETED

 

  1. We cleared, composted and mulched two beds in the Pryog garden.
  2. We picked our first lot of cashews today. Pierre has already received quite a lot of cashews from other growers, but ours seem to be coming a lot slower.
  3. Pierre continues to work in what used to be called the lettuce lab, planting pumpkins.

 

Friday April 24th

 

WEATHER; hot and humid.

 

VOLUNTEERS;   Lauren, Ines, Nitish, Spiros, Phillippo with Pierre, and Priya

 

WORK COMPLETED

 

  1. We picked a few beans, brinjal and chillie.
  2. We weeded a maize bed in the Souryan garden.
  3. We cut basil seeds from half a bed of basil growing in the Souryan garden.
  4. We took bean seeds out of their pods ready to be dried in the hot sun we get this time of year.

 

Monday April 27th

 

WEATHER; a lot of cloud after rain over the weekend. A heavy shower just after work finished.

 

VOLUNTEERS;   Alexandra, Ines, Spiros, Phillippo with Pierre, and Priya

 

WORK COMPLETED

  1. We picked basil, beans, snake gourd, ladies finger and papaya had been picked over the weekend.
  2. We picked cashew
  3. We weeded a bed in Le Jardin

 

Tuesday April 28th

 

WEATHER; hot and humid.

 

VOLUNTEERS;   Alexandra, Ines, Nitish, Ashokarajan, Phillippo with Pierre, and Priya

 

WORK COMPLETED

 

  1. We picked roccolla and beans.
  2. We cleared two beds in the Souryan garden and then composted one of them ready for planting with maize this afternoon. We are planting this afternoon so the seedlings have a chance to get their roots down overnight in readiness for a hot day tomorrow.

 

Wednesday April 29th

 

WEATHER; hot and very humid.

 

VOLUNTEERS;   Alexandra, Ines, Nitish, Ashokarajan, Phillippo, Spiros, Rohit with Pierre, and Priya

 

WORK COMPLETED

 

  1. We picked some basil and beans.
  2. We cleared another bed in the Souryan garden which was very hard work as it hadn’t been weeded for some time and was full of grass. We then composted and mulched it in readiness for planting maybe this afternoon or tomorrow.

 

Thursday April 30th

 

WEATHER; hot and very humid.

 

VOLUNTEERS;   Alexandra, Ines, Ashokarajan, Phillippo, Spiros with Pierre, and Priya

 

WORK COMPLETED

 

  1. We picked beans, snake gourd and ladies finger – small amounts of everything this time of year.
  2. We planted beans in the bed in the Souryan garden that we weeded and composted yesterday.
  3. We planted ladies finger in a bed in the Pryog garden that we prepared last week.