Permaculture Living with MLG

Winter is the season of abundance at Aanandaa. As the sun filters through our trimmed trees, the vegetable beds come alive with cauliflowers, cabbages, broccoli, peas, tomatoes, leafy greens, radishes, carrots, turnips and more. In this episode of Permaculture Living with MLG, I talk about the peculiar logic of the winter vegetable garden—shorter days, the need for more sunshine and space, and cro...

We once had a lively flock of geese at Aanandaa—until bird flu swept through and left us with just two survivors. We didn’t know whether they were male or female, but when they began laying eggs, we waited hopefully for goslings. Year after year, they made their nest, laid a clutch and sat patiently on their eggs. Nothing ever hatched. Eventually we realised the simple truth: both our surviving ge...

In October 2017, I lost my father. He chose to spend his final days at home, surrounded by the people he loved, and to leave this world with dignity and on his own terms. It was a deeply personal experience that changed my understanding of life, death, acceptance and what it means to live intentionally. And then, almost unexpectedly, another chapter began. Soon after his passing, my work in permac...

I grew three varieties of paddy at Aanandaa—and came away questioning the entire system. From migrant workers who could distinguish rice seedlings from almost identical grasses, to flooded fields that needed water again and again, growing paddy became a fascinating lesson in crops, culture, water and traditional knowledge. Why do we flood rice fields? Does rice actually need to stand in water? Whe...

Flood irrigation is one of the oldest and most common ways of watering agricultural fields—but is flooding an entire field really the best way to give plants the water they need? In this episode of Permaculture Living with MLG, I explore what actually happens to water after it enters a field: infiltration, runoff, evaporation, deep percolation and groundwater recharge. I also discuss waterlogging,...

Poplar trees grow fast, grow tall, and can become a valuable timber crop within just a few years. At Aanandaa, we planted them along our boundaries and swales—but what have we learned from growing them? In this episode, I talk about why poplar is so popular in North Indian agroforestry, how long it takes to harvest, its timber value, and its pros and cons. And an interesting question: when a tree...

A beehive is an extraordinary little world—complete with a queen, thousands of workers, drones, nurses, guards, foragers and an astonishing system of communication and cooperation. 🐝 After hosting a beekeeping workshop at Aanandaa, I came away fascinated by how bees organise themselves, divide responsibilities, communicate the location of food, care for their young and work collectively for the s...

What if you made your vegetable beds once—and never had to remake them again? In this episode of Permaculture Living with MLG, I talk about permanent raised beds: how we design them, why we never step on them, and how they help us move towards a no-till system. From permanent pathways and better soil structure to mulching, crop rotation, water management and biodiversity, I explain why the bed sho...

One of the greatest gifts a farmer can pass to the next generation is not land, machinery or money. It is a living collection of seeds. Because every seed saved today is a promise that diversity will still exist tomorrow. Today, saving seed has become a planned activity at Aanandaa. We intentionally leave selected plants to flower. Choose the healthiest individuals. Harvest at the right time. Dry...

Growing wheat taught us far more than how to produce grain. It taught us that farming is not just about soil, seeds and rainfall. It is also about markets, logistics, relationships and trust. If we truly want regenerative agriculture to succeed, we cannot only teach farmers how to grow better crops. We must also help them build better ways to sell them. . . . For more information on permaculture,...

As our permaculture project pivoted from conservation to productivity, we started thinking about whether to till our land or not. Zone 1 where vegetables are planted were easy to transition to permanent beds. But what to do with fields with crops? They were too big to shift to manual work, and yet all our literature told us not to till the soil. We could not stop tilling overnight - but the journe...

As our daughters grew up with Aanandaa, so did the nature of projects they began to handle. Teenagers required much more than a fw dogs and mulching beds to keep them engaged, and thats exactly how our digital channels of website, youtube, facebook and instagram came to be. Radha & Ira learnt some valuable skills along the way. They got real life projects which they could mention in their resu...

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...