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Published: December 20th 2007
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I turned up to Solitude the next day bright and early and ready for work. Krishna was really welcoming, and I felt that maybe I’d just caught him at a bad time yesterday, so left it at that (I was right, cos as it turns out, he’s a pretty special guy, who is well respected). Got straight to work with this lovely English lass called Sara, and an Indian girl called Di Di. We spent the first part of the morning watering & planting the salad beds. They grow a lot of salads here at Solitude. Salad crops make the most money, and there’s a big demand here from the Western Aurovillians and the raw fooder’s. The soil is so much better here than at EverGreen. For starters it’s not red and sandy. Perhaps it’s the composting/mulching they do, or the fact that Solitude is positioned closer to the water table, or both? Although their cow gets most of their food compost, apart from the Papaya waste, which apparently stops cow’s from getting pregnant! What a useful piece of info.. don’t think I’ll be trying that one though ;c) MooOoo!
The best time for planting is now, at the
tail end of the monsoon. Pretty much everything is planted at this time of year, as water is a real struggle throughout the hot season. There’s been a shortage of rain this year, so farmers are slightly concerned. The water here (like EverGreen) is pumped up from underground using a wind pump. Each turn of the wheel is approx a litre of water. When the wind ain’t blowin, they use a geni. I do love the fact that both energy and water aren’t owned by anybody (yet!), Nature is providing. I think unfortunately though, that some people in Auroville are pumping up more than they need. People are getting greedy.. what a surprise! I suppose the more water you can pump, the higher your yield, the more money you can make, um.. the bigger house you can build maybe? Human beings eh? They just keep on repeating the same old lessons. Doh!
I know money itself isn’t evil, it’s what it’s used for..etc But I do like the idea of reducing the need for money. The aim for me now is to be as self sufficient as possible, by addressing my ‘needs’ (not desires), finding sustainable solutions of providing
those needs (so, closing the cycles), and to find true happiness living on as little as possible. Then, only using money when completely necessary, in an attempt to get off the never-ending money merry go round.. shopping, bills, mortgage, consume, consume... more more more! ..
Working the land was really hard work; my hands were sore and blistered within hours. But.. it was extremely satisfying, and quite therapeutic also. It felt really good to be properly connecting with the land, and the food that was so lovingly served up for lunch every day. Although my back certainly wasn’t cut out for a whole day of crouching!
The farm certainly looked like it was very productive, but I was starting to notice how energy intensive it was too. The Permaculture principle ‘Least amount of effort, for maximum yield’ sprung to mind, and I couldn’t help myself attempting to find solutions to reduce the workload. I thought that 4 women working all afternoon to weed a fairly small piece of land was a bit of a waste of energy, but then what do I know about farming!?
Hmm.. Permauculture principles.. ‘the problem is the solution’.. ‘work with
nature’. Would there be a way for nature to turn this weed problem into a positive resource? If this particular type of weed was the problem, then maybe plant a more useful weed to out compete it, and create a yield? Or, maybe plant the right kind of weed(s) so that a) they out dominate the problem weed, but also b) aid the growth of the crop. Companion planting it’s called, or ‘Polycultures’. (Which would require me doing some research on native guilds). Nature always provides diversity. Where in Nature do you see one type of plant growing on it’s own? Very rarely I suspect. The higher the diversity the higher the yield. And this works the same for people too I reckon.. higher creativity ;c)
Anyway, they certainly seemed like they were going down the monoculture route, which I found very surprising. It turns out that the only ‘do nothing’ farming they were ‘not doing’ was with the rice paddies. The rest was all natural and organic, but pretty standard stuff as far as I could tell. Not along Permaculture lines unfortunately.
So again I found myself in a position of teaching rather than learning (though of
course, as always.. I was still learning something ;c) It felt good to be around people with eager ears though, and Sara was especially interested in what I had to say. I decided that I’d put together an ‘Introduction to Permaculture’ talk, and see if people wanted to come along. Sara reckoned that quite a few people from Sadhana Forest would be up for it, so I made a poster and put it up in the Solar Kitchen:
Introduction to Permaculture - Designing Sustainable Human Habitats by following Nature’s Pattern’s - Sat - 3pm - Free - Everyone Welcome.
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