since we cant grow stuff during winter months, we could not do a delivery in march. we will start harvesting our produce from this month onwards. Some of you have asked what all we have planted; sage, roesemary, parsley, basil, mint, celery, spring onions, lettuce, cicory, broccoli, brinjal, carrots, beetroot, small onions (already started to harvest), corn, tomato, capcicum, kothmalli, plums, peaches, avacados, bananas, ...
to quickly recap events of the past couple of weeks, in no particular order:
- usual plethora of friends/guests visiting us and keeping us entertained...
- took us over 9 months, but we finally got wireless broadband working here - my guess is we probably are the "remotest" people in India to get it working...thanks to the officials of bsnl-tamil nadu circle, who were very supportive in making this happen. For those of you technically inclined, do contact us and i'll share more details.
- guido got her annual vaccination and almost died - doing research on the Internet, we discovered that 'annual vaccination' is a big sham 'not reqd. at all' - that the body learns how to deal with diseases after the first-vaccination itself and does not forget it (since the vaccines contain a small sample of the disease itself - it forces the body to build its immune system). lots of tlc and homeopathy saved guido - one week of thuja 30 and sulphur 30.
- water scarcity - yes, our streams too are running dry; mainly due to farmers upstream sucking up more water in the blind hope that it will give them good harvests. Cant' blame them, everybody does what they think is best. We have built some small ponds to store water and recharge the ground-water system.
- building framework for creepers; we've planted quite a bit of chow chow - should get them in a few months.
- planting more banana saplings - mainly to provide shade for coffee - seems that historically, our farm used to grow some of the best bananas in the region...they generally take around 18 months, so we'll see how this batch shapes up.
enough of keeping you folks in suspense; since we have done veggies in the first bok, fruits in the second bok - our plan is to do 'processed foods' for the third bok. The deciding factors are:
- we don't plant stuff during winter months of nov/dec/jan; so what we planted after winter will be ready to harvest from next month onwards (90 days average).
- we already experienced the problems of heat - produce ripening too quickly; nobody likes to open up a box with over-ripe stuff; and since we really will not use chemical preservatives - we have a bit of a challenge here.
- we have had people from other cities (bombay, delhi, pune,) who want to be part of our story.
- friends who have visited us rant/rave about the pestos/arabiata/food made
at home. - for the mba types out there, value addition ;-)
bok - april 2010 edition (delivery 18 Apr 2010):
1/2 kg coffee = Rs. 250/-
1/4 kg plum jam = Rs. 100/-
1/2 kg sun-dried lemon pickle = Rs. 150/-
it goes without saying that all of our products are 100% organic.
since these items are packaged individually, we will accept orders for specific items - if you want only coffee, we will do that. we'll also surprise you with something extra ;-)
since this is our first time, we are producing a limited quantity: 100 coffee packs, 100 bottles of plum jam and 100 bottles of lemon pickle.
our web-based ordering system is still not functioning the way we'd like it to be (havent found time to work on it) and caused a bit of confusion the last time - so for this month's orders, please email us.
as always,
- hok
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