In permaculture, there is a lot of emphasis on planting trees. In fact, we have planted 300-500 trees per acre at Aanandaa. So the main question we are asked is that if you plant trees everywhere, where will you grow your crops? Well, other than grasses like wheat, paddy, millets and corn, all other crops can be grown in clearings under the forest.
For the last many years, we have left a lot of area at Aanandaa as a wild zone, with only fruit and native trees planted on it, practising chop and drop to return biomass to the soil. Thanks to the lockdown, we found the time to clear out these forests, design gardens and bring them into managed cultivation.
1. Hullabaloo - We had planted a grove of guavas in about 1/8th of an acre, along with pears, lemons, bay leaf, jackfruit and heritage date palms in 2011. We cleared the grass manually, marked out terraced plots based on the slopes, marked 6 papaya circles on the periphery, added 2 Mango and 2 Moringa trees, and sowed Sesame (Til) and Horse gram (Kulthi) in the terraced plots.
2. Frangipani Terrace - Just behind our Frangipani pond is reclaimed land, filled with soil excavated during the pond digging in 2012, and planted with over 75 native and flowering trees. 8 years later, we cleared the grass, marked out natural terraces with wooden pegs and ropes, left a walking path adjacent to the chicken coop, added moringa trees to empty spaces, and planted Black gram (Urad dal) and Cotton (Kapaas) in the newly minted terraces.
