Owners :
Hari Prant: He launched the project with his daughter and Eliott Mercier from france. He is the owner of the land.
Now he is no more in the farm, he just comes sometimes.
Richa Prant: She is Hari's daughter, and now she is supervising the project.
Akhil: he is the co-ordinator of the project, always at the farm to continue the developpement
Helpers informations :
-Farmers: Pierrick and Adeline
-Work period: 18 days
-Month : October 2014
Farm Informations :
-Facebook : HERE
-HelpX: HERE
-Website: HERE
-Localisation: Next to Haldwani, Dogaon Village, Uttarakand Province
-Altitude: 1400m
-Surface: Total: about 1.4 ha
-Field : One part sloppy and one part flat
-Album Photo: HERE
The Himalayan Farm Project is situated in Dogaon, a small village in the North Est of Delhi, and really close to the Nepali border.
It's an organic farm whitch also use some principles from the permaculture and the agro-ecology. Today, Akhil, the co-ordinator is cultivating the land according to a natural way of farming and as a "ecological omnivore"
The situation of the farm is quite special, lost in a valley, 1 hour "climbing" from the main road. The land is globaly sloppy but a severals decade ago the former owners dug the slope to create flat lands and space to cultivate. Thanks to this previous work, 1/3 of the farm is now flat.
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| Map of the farm : 1.5 ha. The Ouest is on the left |
With Adeline, we stayed a bit more than 2 weeks in this farm. The occasion to meet many fantastic people and also Richa the co-founder of the project. Thanks to her, we got the occasion to know more about the begining of the project. "3 people who came 6 or 7 years ago, with just the food and some tools to start an amazing project"
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| From the left to the Right: Jon, Adeline, Pierrick, Lalu, Eve, Massagi, Akhil et Kate, Michal et Bala |
The thing witch was good with the organisation of the farm and Akhil is that we were able to do what we like, what we felt to do, of course, according to the needs of the farm.
So with Adeline, we were engaged in differents small projects :
-Building a Kitchen compost with the pine wood cut by Jon (another helper): Jon was involved in the project to cut all the new pines infesting the land. In Fact when india was a britich colony, the british inported pine. Since then in some regions, pines are everywhere. To protect the farm from the invasion, the pines need to be cut but also used for something else.
-Create an Map Fruit trees to list all the fruit trees of the farm.
-Create an experimental permaculture mound with wood in the middle.
-Create new planting beds for peas, lentils, beans and radishes
What we did with Adeline during our stay in the farm :
Kitchen compost :
Our first small project was to create a kitchen compost.
The time was perfect because Jon, an other helper was cutting some pine trees.
So with Adeline we just took these trees from the sloppy part of the farm, carried them next to the house and build the Kitchen compost
So with Adeline, we were engaged in differents small projects :
-Building a Kitchen compost with the pine wood cut by Jon (another helper): Jon was involved in the project to cut all the new pines infesting the land. In Fact when india was a britich colony, the british inported pine. Since then in some regions, pines are everywhere. To protect the farm from the invasion, the pines need to be cut but also used for something else.
-Create an Map Fruit trees to list all the fruit trees of the farm.
-Create an experimental permaculture mound with wood in the middle.
-Create new planting beds for peas, lentils, beans and radishes
But first, let's see what is already done at the farm:
The farm is now composed of 3 buildings. The 2 new ones were finished between 2013 and 2014. The third one is really old and needs to be renovated. Right now, it is used as bedrooms upstairs, animals shelter and tools shed downstairs.The renovation of this building is one of the next project witch will be launched soon.
The second main is just next to the old one. It was built in 2013. It's a COB house, done with mod bricks and the carpentry with local wood ( ? ). To do it, Richa and Akhil have notably asked the help of a local guy, specialist in this kind of construction, really common in this area.
The building is a large rectangle divided in 3 parts: The living room , the kitchen and the fire place with the wood stove.
The third and new building is a small cottage to welcome visitors, to do yoga, to read... It is on the ouest border of the property. It was also done by the same guy who was building the new main building.
Nowadays, Akhil and Richa are concerned by the toilets. Since the creation of the farm, 2 differents compost toilets were done but none of them are really satisfying.
Also, we have to notice that in a sub-tropical/temperated climate it's quite complicated to manage if we want a compost toilet. During the wet season (monsoon) there are so many insects and so many flyes that it become complicated to manage the wastes and can introduce some deseases.
Now they are thinking about what to do:
A classical Septic tank ?
A Phytoepuration system ? (It could be a problem with the rain during the monsoon)
An improved compost toilet witch could put the flyes away ? Maybe with the same system as Panya Project ?
Whatever, this problem will be resolved soon because in march 2015, the learning center will receive his first students and it needs to be done.
Project 1 : Buildings and the life style
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| The old building |
The second main is just next to the old one. It was built in 2013. It's a COB house, done with mod bricks and the carpentry with local wood ( ? ). To do it, Richa and Akhil have notably asked the help of a local guy, specialist in this kind of construction, really common in this area.
The building is a large rectangle divided in 3 parts: The living room , the kitchen and the fire place with the wood stove.
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| The new building : exterior |
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| The new building: interior |
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| The new building : interior: fire place and kitchen |
The third and new building is a small cottage to welcome visitors, to do yoga, to read... It is on the ouest border of the property. It was also done by the same guy who was building the new main building.
 |
| The third building |
Nowadays, Akhil and Richa are concerned by the toilets. Since the creation of the farm, 2 differents compost toilets were done but none of them are really satisfying.
Also, we have to notice that in a sub-tropical/temperated climate it's quite complicated to manage if we want a compost toilet. During the wet season (monsoon) there are so many insects and so many flyes that it become complicated to manage the wastes and can introduce some deseases.
Now they are thinking about what to do:
A classical Septic tank ?
A Phytoepuration system ? (It could be a problem with the rain during the monsoon)
An improved compost toilet witch could put the flyes away ? Maybe with the same system as Panya Project ?
Whatever, this problem will be resolved soon because in march 2015, the learning center will receive his first students and it needs to be done.
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| Existing toilets |
Project 2 : Seed bank
Akhil has also launched a seed bank. The goals are to exchange a maximum with others people and organisation and to give "good seeds" to people.
In "good seeds", we means:
-No GMO
-No Hybride
-Local seeds
And as possible, use local seeds and differents varietie.
Today (End 2014) The Himalayan far project has collected already around 100 varieties from differents species. With the collaboration with organisations like Kokopelli, Navdanya farm and so on, the seed bank should increase really fast...
Project 3: Learning center
After the severals first years where the farm was leaving like a community, the global project is changing.
Before Akhil 2 others co-ordinator where there to lead the project. Today, under the leadership of Akhil and Richa, a learning center is about to be opened.
Many goals introduced this learning center:
-Share the knowledge of ecologycal farming, Permaculture, Agro-Ecology
-Make some Permaculture PDC
-Get subventions for the developpement of the farm
What we did with Adeline during our stay in the farm :
Kitchen compost :
Our first small project was to create a kitchen compost.
The time was perfect because Jon, an other helper was cutting some pine trees.
So with Adeline we just took these trees from the sloppy part of the farm, carried them next to the house and build the Kitchen compost
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| Cleaning the zone |
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| Harvesting and cutting the wood |
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| Construction part 1 |
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| Construction part 2 : wood at the base of the compost for the aeration plus different layers of compost and mulch |
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| Construction finished |
Map Fruit Trees
On the farm, many trees have been planted since the beginning. One of our small project was to list all the fruit trees of the farm on a plan. A long job whitch require time and patience !
On the farm, many trees have been planted since the beginning. One of our small project was to list all the fruit trees of the farm on a plan. A long job whitch require time and patience !
Experimental permaculture mound
Why is this mound experimental ?
Especially because we put wood inside and we don't know how it will goes in a subtropical/temperated climate, how fast will be the decomposition of the wood.
We put wood mainly to keep the water during the hot season and to improve the soil. Of course, the fact to not weeding and to not doing any work with the soil was 2 other important elements
So, it will be really iterresting to see how it's going in this climate.
Why is this mound experimental ?
Especially because we put wood inside and we don't know how it will goes in a subtropical/temperated climate, how fast will be the decomposition of the wood.
We put wood mainly to keep the water during the hot season and to improve the soil. Of course, the fact to not weeding and to not doing any work with the soil was 2 other important elements
So, it will be really iterresting to see how it's going in this climate.
The mound is based on the folowing
knowledge :
-Sepp HOLZER from Austria (Global
idea) Information every where
-Phillip FORRER from France
(Methodology)
So, the mound is made following the
methodology of Phillip FORRER
you can wathch the video on Youtube,
even if you don't understand french, at least, you can looking at the
evolution of the mound : HERE
-Richard WALLNER from France (How
to mainatin the mound and the plant association)
He is a specialist of mounds in France : Richard Wallner. He
develloped plans directly for the mounds with plants association. His Website (in French) HERE
The steps of the creation of the mound:
Step 1: Cleaning, implantation with rope and digging around 20 -30cm deep and 1.20cm large. I
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Step 2: Harvesting the wood and filling ofthe whole (don't use wood whitch could make your soil acidic, exept if you need it)
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Step 3: 1 layer of small branches (10cm) and 1 layer of grass (10cm)
Step 3: AGAIN ONE LAYER OF WOOD, BRANCHES AND GRASS
Step 4: Put the earth on the mound and maitain the entire mound with wood, bamboo...every ecological material you want. We did it with pine wood because we had a lot.
Step 5: Make the good shape: flat on the top (50cm large) and slopy on the borders. After we planted following the plans done by Richard Wallner. Cover with a thick mulch (from 10 to 20cm)
That's the end of the article !
Cheers
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