Permaculture Living with MLG

During our time in Gurgaon, it was common for Manisha or Agam to drive up to the farm over weekends and holidays. Sometimes it meant starting really early while it was still dark and there were many adventures on these driving trips. Sometimes, we were accompanied by the children or the parents, but at times we have even carted pets, honey bees and once 75 hens on this 5 hours ride! . . . . . . Fo...

The first social interaction we had in the village was attending the wedding of our nightwatchman and first employee Sunil. We had known Sunil from the time he first joined us, and seen him mature into a responsible householder over the last 7 years. The wedding was replete with old world rituals, little children running around, a shy bride & groom, a traditional baraat and festivities. We wer...

The dog and cat population on your land can quickly spiral out of control leading to uncared for dogs, accidents and incidents with stray dogs. While we enjoyed having small puppies and kittens to play with we realised over time that 'joy' was not a management strategy. We needed to keep only as many dogs and cats as we could care for and feed well. We started spaying and neutering all of them, an...

Raising hens or chicken was challenging for us. Desi/ native hens would often lay eggs but not sit on them to hatch into chicks. And day old chicks available commercially would have very high mortality on the farm. We were keen to integrate hens into the farm at a moderate scale to get a steady supply of eggs. But, we did not meet with much success. A visit to Kegg Farms in Gurgaon taught us a thi...

When we first began harvesting significant quantities of fruits and vegetables from our farm, we faced an unexpected challenge: we had more produce than we could consume, and no easy market to sell it. Living in Gurgaon at the time, we needed a way to ensure that the harvest did not go to waste. That journey led us into the world of traditional food preservation—pickles, jams, chutneys and preserv...

While planting an orchard of fruit trees, one has to keep many factors in mind. The quality and variety of the sapling really matters, as does the care one takes of the graft as the tree grows. Many trees need special pruning or trimming seasonally, and one must have skilled people to manage that. I made a lot of mistakes with my fruit trees and learned the hard way! I wish someone had guided me b...

First year of being around the mangoes - so many varieties - so much fruit! We were taking basket fulls back to Gurgaon and could eat a couple of quintals just by ourselves! We had planted a wide variety of mangoes at the start of Aanandaa, but lost track of which is which. We had to re aquaint ourselves with all the trees, and discovered that many were just the root stock and the scion stock had...

A Vegan get together resulted in a farm tour at Aanandaa. For the first time I took a group of visitors around the farm explaining to them the permaculture design principles in action. I learnt to articulate concepts and show them in motion. I had never planned to be a permaculture teacher or influencer - it is not something you can plan for. You can only practice to be one on every opportunity yo...

When I look back at photos of 2016 onwards, I see a lot of animals at the farm. Cows were especially kept for cow manure and cow urine which was used to make jeevamrut. It was my belief back then that organic farming runs on these two ingredients. Over the years, I have had a change of heart. A permaculture farm does not run on cow manure - it runs on biomass. That is what makes the farm regenerat...

In May 2016, we decided to make a website for the farm. It was a project for our 13 year old who was showing interest in coding and software. We needed a URL, a logo, and a website hosting platform. It proved to be trickier than expected, but the children learnt some useful skills about branding, logos, web design and hosting! . . . For more information on permaculture, visit www.aanandaa.com. You...

In the summer of 2016, we decided to camp out at Aanandaa one summer night. This would be the first time we were spending the entire night on the land. We excitedly pitched the tent and set up our bedding. But alas, it was a hot still night with fireflies and mosquitoes in equal measure. It turned out to be a sleepless frustrating experience, but we were rewarded handsomely with a beautiful experi...

Soon after we loved to Gurgaon, we got our first large harvest - of onions. The local arthiyas did not buy onions. So we had to find other ways to dispose them off. Luckily for us an organic farmer;s market had just started in Chandigarh. Our family had a nice adventure sorting, cleaning and bagging onions to take to market. We also carried a sack back to Gurgaon to sell in our society/ condominiu...

Coming to Gurgaon suddenly felt like a huge leap for us. The physical proximity was there, but also the mental proximity. Moreover, Agam had retired from work, so he could visit very often. I would often drive up on my own starting at 5-5:30 am and reach the farm by 10 spending my weekends doing small and big projects. We were more relaxed in terms of coming and going and our frequency of visits b...

We set out to grow some food and harvest our own water. But we got so much more in return. We realised that land is not a place of extraction. It is not a factory. It is our home. And before we set out to build a dwelling unit on it, we must convert it into a habitat. Somewhere along the way the land changes, and we change. And then we both meet to live a life of compatibility and harmony. . . . F...

As we integrated vegetables into our plantation design, we realised how the green revolution has completely wiped out all the varieties of heirloom and native seeds that grew in Punjab/ Haryana belt. Today farmers are dependent on companies for hybrid seeds and have lost the self sufficient and dignity that comes from seed saving . . . For more information on permaculture, visit www.aanandaa.com....

A big problem of modern agriculture is our choice of crops. All across the world our focus is on growing grasses like wheat, maize, rice and millets. Grasses are neither our natural eco system, nor our natural diet. This shift to eating grasses at large scale is a big criss for both the planet, and our health. Grasses are the natural diet of grazing animals, not humans. . . . For more information...

Within years of setting up Aanandaa, we had a stream of fruit available around the year to feast on. Its crazy how people choose to plant monoculture orchards, when you can grow a vertically stacked orchard of many different fruit varieties - which together constitute a food forest. Fruit is our natural diet and trees are the planet's natural cover. There is a reason why food forests are good for...

Building soil is not an overnight exercise. In fact it may not be completed even in one lifetime. Our soils are so degraded worldwide, that it requires serious and continuous focus to build them back. That is a primary goal for a permaculture project. It is the conversation we must have with our staff when we review their performance. How is the soil doing? . . . For more information on permacultu...

2015 saw us making some big changes. Some of those decisions were taken by us, and by the end of the year destiny steered us in another direction. Eventually it all worked out better for our ultimate goal to come live on the land at Aanandaa For more information on permaculture, visit www.aanandaa.com. You can contact us at  hello@aanandaa.com  and +91 62838 99456   Follow us on our social media h...

As we share this space with so many other species, we start observing the instincts they have regarding raising their young, findings their food and healing themselves. In contrast to them, humans look weak and incompetent. We have lost our instinct for living on this planet. Maybe we need to re-connect with our children, our food and our bodies. This is what permaculture teaches us to do. . . For...

Pigs are intelligent and loyal animals. They have been domesticated by humans for centuries and used for meat in many cultures. Many farms in the west integrate pigs into their permaculture farms. This led us to also experiment and see whether pigs have any place at Aanandaa. Our experiments were interesting and insightful. Listen on the hear what happened.   For more information on permaculture,...

A big source of inspiration for our work was Masanobu Fukuoka's book One straw Revolution. he spoke about do nothing farming, and no-till farming. We were eager to see if this really works, and the best way to find out is to do it on a small scale. We decided to plant wheat without tilling the soil on a small patch, and compare the results with the tilled wheat crop. The results were fascinating....

2014 was the year of learning about animals. After our adventures with keeping goats, we now wanted to integrate cows in aanandaa. We believed that cows were an essential part of farming in India, and that we needed them for cow manure and urine. Being vegan, we had no plans of taking milk from them. However, integrating large animals like cows came with its own challenges.    For more information...

A parcel of land came up for sale across from our second entry gate. It is rare to find land adjacent to or near your existing land. So we took the opportunity to add it to Aanandaa, and named it Annexe. It os where we grow crops, and we have intelligently added trees to the design, while leaving large plots for wheat, pulses and oil seeds. Today it is a no till farm.    For more information on pe...

After reading so much about permaculture practices in teh west, we decided we must also integrate domesticated animals into Aanandaa. Our first introduction was a pair of goats/ lambs named Hira and Moti. What initially looked like fun turned into a high maintenance activity for us. We realised animals were best integrated if you had large land holdings and were rearing animals for meat. Otherwise...