Another farm..

Not another farm, this one I visited this Sunday!
Heavenly..it was sweet & fun unlimited..
It was a very harsh & busy 2 weeks I had and thought I shud just lie low and rest the full day this Sunday..but like an addict I had my tremors as I realized I had not visited an organic farm for sometime now.
So W & me set off to this special farm 100kms from Madras. 100 acres of mangoes, chikoos, amla etc. Mangoes it was mostly and and scores of varieties.
As we just entered Mr.Bharathi the owner of this grand farm asked if we want a juice. I nodded thinking anything cold is welcome this hot noon time. He comes out with 2 mangoes to us and presses it on all sides and offers saying ‘just bite at one end and suck up all the juice. One can also place a straw in the hole and drink it easily’. Hmm..a straw in to a fruit! That was a delicious welcome drink!
A man who has not used any chemicals ina farm that has only fruits is a great feat. Not to use any chemical treatment to ripen them was just incredible. Infact he hardly plucks the fruits..he waits for them to fall off, ripe!!
Except when we ask for some semi ripe ones like I asked for restore sake.
What all types! How differently luscious and sweet! Rumani, sindura, juicewala(called rasalu), bangalora, banganapalli, kaala body, malgova, Himam pasand to name some of what I ate there..just pluck eat..unimaginable.
Then we went to the parts where sapota (chikoo) were planted and so hogged on them for a change!
A memorable day! I don’t think I can ever forget this day when I ate so many mangoes in record time and relished till the last piece.
Some small favors for the farm visits carried out for restore, eh?
BTW we hardly saw any insects! Nor did we see any plant/tree wanting any special attention or with some pest or disease attack! Infact Bharathi voices his concern that he wants some insects to happen. He says that shud be some interesting challenge but since the soil and seed are great in his case theres no disease. In fact the rare occasion that his trees got some infection last year all farmers around suggested him some heavy dose of chemical..but he didn’t budge. He called his mentor (an agri officer) who asked him to just dilute maida and spray. So these maida paste(diluted) went and got stuck to the leaves to which the insects were attracted and so got stuck. They either became easy pick for the birds or they got stuck in to those small sticky maida pieces. Then the next day of sun heated all these pieces and they would fall off like dosas from a hot pan! So simple, eh? Ingenious ways, incredibly working solutions. Still we seek to nasty & costly solutions. (below: Bharathi posing proudly with his nellikai yield and the mango hanging all





over.)