NOVEMBER 2015

By Daily Diary

Monday November 2nd

WEATHER; it rained most of the night so it was grey, wet and muddy this morning.

VOLUNTEERS; Susheela, Zhanna, Spiros, Caroline, Amrit, Aashna, Chris, Aoki, Zoe, Mahendran, Bala with Rajan, Pierre and Priya

 

WORK COMPLETED

 

  1. We picked basil, roccolla and bassella spinach.
  2. As it was so wet and raining some of the time we did the wet weather job of winding up string into balls.
  3. Three amazing volunteers went out and planted three trees. It was just the right weather for this sort of activity but with the rain and mud was uncomfortable for those who did it.

 

Tuesday November 3rd

 

WEATHER; sunny with cloud and although no more rain is still very wet underfoot.

 

VOLUNTEERS; VOLUNTEERS; Susheela, Caroline, Chris, Zoe, Mahendran, Bala, Codi, Kartik with Rajan, Pierre and Priya

 

WORK COMPLETED

 

  1. We planted ladies finger and pumpkin on a bed in Le Jardin.
  2. We planted beans on three of the new beds in the Pryog garden.
  3. We planted some roccolla on a bed in the Pryog garden.

 

Wednesday November 4th

 

WEATHER; sunny and humid.

 

VOLUNTEERS; Susheela, Caroline, Chris, Zoe, Aoki, Spiros, Mahendran, Bala, Codi, James, Kevin with Rajan, Pierre, Vivekand Priya

 

WORK COMPLETED

 

  1. We picked basil, bassella, roccolla and large amounts of brinjal.
  2. We strung up beans in the Souryan garden and weeded the bean bed.
  3. We planted amaranth in the nursery.
  4. We continued to plant roccolla seedlings on a bed in the Pryog garden which we will have to finish tomorrow.
  5. The JCB came and did some moving around of soil as part of the development work we are doing in the Wild Orchard and Fruit forest.

 

Thursday November 5th

 

WEATHER; after rain last night it was sunny and humid this morning. Although it sounded like a lot of rain the water gauge showed us that it was not that much.

 

VOLUNTEERS; Susheela, Caroline, Chris, Zoe, Aoki, Spiros, Bala, Cody, James, Dorita, Vinod with Pierreand Priya

 

WORK COMPLETED

 

  1. We picked bassella and roccolla.
  2. As the grass in the seed garden had been cut yesterday we decided to tidy up the whole area this morning. This included weeding all the beds, planting roccolla in gaps in the beds and weeding the big circular bed full of pineapple plants.
  3. We cut down overhanging branches of neem trees near the kitchen. The rain was making them come down very low.
  4. Digging work continued in the Shambala area with the JCB.

 

Friday November 6th

 

WEATHER; sunny and humid

 

VOLUNTEERS; Caroline, Chris, Zoe, Spiros, Bala, Cody, James, Dorita, Virtiwith Pierre, Rajanand Priya

 

WORK COMPLETED

 

  1. We picked a huge amount of basil together with roccolla.
  2. We planted beans in the new end beds in the Pryog garden.
  3. We planted maize on a bed in Le Jardin.
  4. We planted out tomato and chillie seedlings in the nursery.

 

Monday November 9th

 

WEATHER; rain and wind with a cyclone expected to hit this evening. Its being called ‘extreme weather conditions’ by the weather people.

 

VOLUNTEERS; Caroline, Chris, Zoe, Spiros, Cody, with Priya

 

WORK COMPLETED

 

  1. Despite the weather we picked bassella spinach and roccolla.
  2. We did a little bit of what I call our ‘wet weather’ job which is winding up string to turn hanks into balls ready to be used.

 

Wednesday November 11th

 

WEATHER; at last some sun! Although still cloud around so don’t know how long it will last.

 

VOLUNTEERS; Caroline, Chris, Zoe, Spiros, Cody, Adam, James, Yaoim with Priya

 

WORK COMPLETED

 

  1. We picked ladies finger, brinjal and quite a lot of basil.
  2. We did a huge clearing up job. We chopped up all the trees that had fallen down and collected a lot of green papaya. We took all the wood to the bonfire place near the stone circle.
  3. We started weeding a bed in the Pryog garden prior to planting. This is a bed we started planting on Monday, but what with the rain they have all come up again!

 

Thursday November 12th

 

WEATHER; More sun today but every now and then looks like it might rain.

 

VOLUNTEERS; Caroline, Dorota, Zoe, Spiros, Cody, Adam, James, Yaoim with Priya

 

WORK COMPLETED

 

  1. We finished clearing up a corner of the Pryog garden where we had chopped down a tree because it was making the place so dark. This means that much more should grow on the ends of the beds that were in shadow. We also cleared up a papaya tree that had fallen down and propped up trees that were listing because of the rain and wind. Some of these were banana bushes near the water tank.
  2. We mulched and planted a bed in the Pryog garden with pumpkins.
  3. We continued the pumpkin planting on another bed in the Pryog garden that we cleared, composted and mulched.
  4. We continued planting maize seedlings on the bed in Le Jardin that we started several days ago – but we still didn’t manage to finish. This was mainly because there was a lot of extra weeding because of the rain.

 

Friday November 13th

 

WEATHER; persistent rain

 

VOLUNTEERS; Caroline, Dorota, Zoe, Spiros, Cody, Adam, James, Yaoim, Matteus, Virti with Priya and Rajan

 

WORK COMPLETED

 

  1. We picked bassella and amaranth spinach, ladies finger, roccolla and brinjal.
  2. We finally finished off planting maize on the bed in Le Jardin.
  3. We weeded, mulched and replanted a pumpkin bed in the Souryan garden.
  4. We did a lot of work in the nursery planting out pommelo and brinjal seedlings and kumquat seeds. We also reorganised some of the trays to make watering easier.
  5. We did wet weather jobs – cleaning the store room and winding up string.

 

Monday November 16th

 

WEATHER; it rained for 15 hours or more without stopping yesterday. According to a friend there was 54mm of rain. So today it is extremely muddy and damp. All the ponds are overflowing.

 

VOLUNTEERS; Caroline, Dorota, Spiros, Cody, Adam, James, Yaoim, Virti with Priya and Rajan

 

WORK COMPLETED

 

  1. We picked bassella spinach, some very muddy roccola with small quantities of ladies finger and brinjal.
  2. We weeded the roccola bed where we picked in Le Jardin together with a basil bed.
  3. We weeded an amaranth bed in the Souryan garden. We ended up clearing the bed as the amaranth that was left suffered a lot in the rain.

 

Tuesday November 17th

 

WEATHER; no more rain but still pretty wet underfoot. Apparently there is supposed to be more rain in the next few days.

 

VOLUNTEERS; Caroline, Spiros, Cody, Adam, James, Yaoim, Virti, Lavanya, Joke with Priya and Rajan

 

WORK COMPLETED

 

  1. We finished clearing the bed in the Souryan garden that we started yesterday and then replanted it with amaranth and ladies finger.
  2. We did a lot of work in the nursery, clearing up and planting out roccolla and lettuce.
  3. We cleared and composted a bed in the seed garden and then planted out the first of the lettuce seedlings for the coming cool season.
  4. We started weeding a basil bed in the Pryog garden.

 

Wednesday November 18th

 

WEATHER; sun and cloud and drying up a bit. Very nice.

 

VOLUNTEERS; Caroline, Spiros, Cody, Adam, James, Yaoim, Virti, Joke with Priya

 

WORK COMPLETED

 

  1. We picked ladies fingers, bassella spinach and roccolla.
  2. We cleared a bed in the Pryog garden and started planting it with roccolla.
  3. We planted 15 trees in the forest – and that included digging the holes.
  4. We worked in the nursery planting out roccolla.

 

Thursday November 19th

 

WEATHER; bright and sunny with clouds and rain. We experienced a lot of different weather during work time.

 

VOLUNTEERS; Caroline, Spiros, Cody, Adam, James, Yaoim, Virti, Alex with Priya and Rajan

 

WORK COMPLETED

 

  1. We finished planting the roccola in the Pryog garden that we started planting yesterday.
  2. We cleared, composted and mulched a bed in the Pryog garden that we planted with chillie seedlings.
  3. We cleared up an area along the path next to the Souryan garden. This was in readiness to dig a trench for a water pipe to the Shambala area. Taking away a lot of the greenery as brought a lot of light to the trees on the path.

 

Friday November 20th

 

WEATHER; raining when we started – not very hard and with sun. Then very hard rain later making it very muddy again.

 

VOLUNTEERS; Caroline, Spiros, Adam, Virti, Orianne, Naama with Priya, Pierre and Rajan

 

WORK COMPLETED

 

  1. We picked basil, bassella spinach, ladies finger and brinjal.
  2. We cleared, composted and mulched three intermittent beds in the VaiyuBhoomi orchard.
  3. We finished clearing up the material that we cleared out along the path yesterday.

 

Monday November 23rd

 

WEATHER; rained most of yesterday so extremely wet and muddy this morning with lots of mosquitoes.

 

VOLUNTEERS; Caroline, Virti, Orianne, Naama, Alex, Vinod with Priya, Pierre, Vivek and Rajan

 

WORK COMPLETED

 

  1. We picked basil, bassella spinach and ladies finger.
  2. We cleared a bed in the Souryan garden.
  3. We got the nursery work organised as we have started doing lettuce. Every day we have to sieve three barrow loads of soil and mix with three barrow loads of coconut fibre to make the nursery mixture. Then we aim to plant out 15 trays of lettuce seedlings each day. Because it was raining part of the time we all went into the nursery and got 19 trays done today.

 

Tuesday November 24th

 

WEATHER; pouring with rain when we started but gradually brightened up and now it is sunny.

 

VOLUNTEERS; Caroline, Ortal, Orianne, Naama,Vinod, Sanjay with Priya and Rajan

 

WORK COMPLETED

 

  1. It was raining hard when work started so we worked in the nursery planting out lettuce seedlings. We got a huge amount done.
  2. In the Pryog garden we finished planting a bed with roccolla and another with chillies.
  3. We planted chillies in three beds in the Vayu Bhoomi orchard.

 

Wednesday November 25th

 

WEATHER; mist first thing this morning followed by sun! Everything starting to dry up.

 

VOLUNTEERS; Caroline, Ortal, Orianne, Naama,Vinod, Sanjay, Alex, Kevin, Yaoim, Bala, Spiros with Priya, Vivek, Pierre and Rajan

 

WORK COMPLETED

  1. We picked basil, bassella spinach, ladies finger and brinjal.
  2. We cleared a bed in Le Jardin and planted out the first lot of lettuce seedlings.
  3. We weeded a maize bed in the Souryan garden.

 

Thursday November 26th

 

WEATHER; after a shower last night it was quite damp underfoot this morning. Bright but grey.

 

VOLUNTEERS; Caroline, Orianne, Naama,Vinod, Alex, Yaoim, Virti, Spiros with Priya, and Rajan

 

WORK COMPLETED

 

  1. We finished planting the lettuce bed in Le Jardin, that we started yesterday. We planted the rest of the chillies and some tomatoes. I was a bit unsure about the tomatoes as I don’t think the rain has finished yet. But as they are local tomatoes, if it does rain they will probably survive.
  2. We planted four banana bushes in the Pryog garden.
  3. We made a start on clearing up the new Pryog nursery. We took out some banana plants and a huge glyricidea bush.
  4. We cleared up soil in the nursery.
  5. We started weeding a maize bed in the Souryan garden.

 

 

Friday November 27th

 

WEATHER; sun!

 

VOLUNTEERS; Caroline, Orianne, Ortal, Naama,Vinod, Alex, Virti, Spiros, Roshan, Laxmi, Wikwith Priya, Pierre and Rajan

 

WORK COMPLETED

 

  1. We picked basil, bassella and amaranth spinach, ladies finger and brinjal.
  2. We did a lot of clearing up in the new Pryog orchard – composting and mulching bananas, cutting back some very overgrown glyricidea and cutting down a silver work tree.
  3. We worked in the nursery planting out lettuce seedlings. We tried out some new trays with smaller compartments in which we found it was almost impossible to plant the seedlings.

 

Monday November 30th

 

WEATHER; after rain all of yesterday and a lot of last night, this morning it was sunny and extremely wet underfoot.

 

VOLUNTEERS; Caroline, Orianne, Ortal, Naama, Vinod,Virti, Spiros, Roshan, Mario, Nitzan, Susheelawith Priya andPierre

 

WORK COMPLETED

 

  1. We picked basil, bassella spinach, roccolla and huge amounts of ladies finger.
  2. We weeded the roccolla beds in the Pryog garden where we had picked the roccolla.
  3. We weeded a bed in the Souryan garden ready to prepare it for planting.
  4. We did a lot of clearing up in the Pryog orchard; pulling up the old irrigation system, cutting down a work tree and glyricidea and pulling out some wooden constructions for stringing beans.