Preparing land for Organic/Natural Farming.

 The land I bought was seriously damaged and contaminated with conventional pesticides. 

I happened to read lot of bad news about misusing chemical pesticides and fertilizers for selfish reasons and subsequently destroying earth and human health. So I was dreaming about having small land where I can do farming following what my grandfather did to protect the earth. Since I was able to buy a small land I wanted to practice the natural/organic farming methods.

Now its a difficult part, since my Grandafather is no more 😌, I have to reach other people who can teach me the right methods.  

Fortunately Coimbatore city has a very famous Agricultural University where they conduct a day training for farmers who is interested to learn organic farming. There you go! How easy it was. 

TNAU, Coimbatore

I joined the class and to my surprise every minute was worth it!!! Many experts gave so many detailed lectures. I was overwhelmed with information. 😍😍😍😍

I try to be a good student, listening to the experts and do what they say. Every time it works!!!

First advice was to check the quality of water and soil. That was easy to do. And we know the results. Nothing looks good no organic carbon content at all.

Next was to input some nutrients in the farm of multiple type of plants. They gave the list of seeds to buy and grow them for about 40 days and then feed those plants for the earth to get some organic content to start the organic farming. 

I found a place where I can buy all kind of these seeds in the list.

I bought 20 kgs 😀😁

My neighbour farmer saw me with this and she guaranteed nothing will grow here and its a waste of my money. At that time I was least bothered about money and I replied her I throw all these to the earth and she can decide what she wants. I will not be worried for the result!

I arranged a person to prepare the land for all these seeds to grow behind my home, which was under construction. I still remember that day!

Seeds were thrown I had no clue how to do that even, I did however I felt like.

So happy to see seeds starts to grow. Land behind the tank.

Growing well...

💜💚💛💙💗

I could see lot of sunflowers too. 

Next step was to feed these grown plants to the earth to start my plantation.

I am so grateful to the Professors who make this effort to teach people like us and we were added in the group and anytime we need help we get answers from experts. Specially Dr. Suganthi madam is my inspiration and she is so resourceful and so humble to teach lay person like us very patiently and help us at anytime when we need! 

Thank you!

Farm land without Farm home would be a shame.

 I knew I wanted to build a traditional home using red roof tiles and wood frames because I know the Indian weather well and specially to survive during summer. I planned for it and as I always say I am the most luckiest person in the world. 😉

I had a great opportunity to live and travel around in the historical European countries and I always observe detail of the places I visit and I memorised it somehow. At that time I implant the ideas and I decided if I ever wanted to build the home then I should implement these ideas and designs for sustainable living. It was a long wait but its absolutely worth it!!! Approximately for 20 years 😂

So for PK paradise home, I had plans but to bring it to the design was not easy because I had zero experience. 

First challenge was the architecture diagram... I spoke with few experts and it seemed to me that they charge a lot and I didnt want to spend money on it. 

Since I had a vision I wanted to design on my own and to get help I reached google and I  found 15 days free architecture plan software. That was amazing. I used and I made my paradise design!!!

I asked my construction contractor to use this and based on this he started to build the house. 

You might think oh, in PK paradise everything happened so easy... NO NO NO!!! Wait for the issues... 

I do not want to scare my readers in the beginning.😉

As I said we always start with some prayers...

Work starts...

Basement...

This is where the building material is stored. Simple eco hut!!!

 So, the final structure is established as per the design.

The main issues I had to face with the contractor were,

His main plan was to cheat me at the maximum possible and use my money for his own home build. This I found that later. With the money I provided he built two story building in the nearby city. 😀😅 That would have been acceptable if he had done something for me to live reasonably. I paid 95 percentage of the money for the 40 percent of the work completion. It sound stupid but I did!!!

I was naive and trusting contractors is not always good idea as you all know. I learnt it but to implement is so hard. Because if you dont provide them money they do not work. Its tricky business and I specially need to learn a lot in that aspect.

So I found this betrayal is highly unacceptable and I almost begged him to finish it off as per promise. But of course he doesnt want. And he left me no option other than complaining to Police.

During this construction period I stayed with my parents and their home is about 100 km far and I have to take 4 buses and 4 km walk to reach PK Paradise.

I visit the site alternate days because it was so tiring and practically impossible to do so everyday. Also I had a grandson living with us and I wanted to spend time with them and help my parents as well.

So During this journey I used the time to raise online complaint against the contractor😁. The TN Police system is improvised in this case I could do it online.

So the guy was present in the station and he got warning and he gave it in writing that he will finish all pending work in 30 days. Good thing was I gave a complaint and I got some important work done meanwhile. 

The contractor tried to finish things, he did very crappy work and I start to think its going to be wasted if I let him continue. 

I can give second time complaint against him but Police would say take care of him in the court.😅😅

I was so mad about his betrayal and I wanted to take him to the court and I wanted to argue myself. But with few days I decided to forget about it and finish the work and move on with my life and think of higher purpose than fighting these cheats. 

I dont know how far you believe it, I am still working on the pending construction by myself!!! Its October 2025. FYI: He supposed to deliver the full finished home in October 2022.😀

So long story short I have place to live now. That too its a Paradise for me!!!!

Most important task of any farmer: Finding ground water, June 2022

I knew from my parents place that "Diviner" found ground water using cocount😀(it swirls😊) and they point that spot and say this is where one have to dig.  Coimbatore is the city where my parents live we had plenty of ground water in 10 meter depth.

So I was thinking this should be easy like that to find a spot on the ground which we bought. Of course that was not the case. Recently one of the group members called me and said why did you want to buy the land in the "Dinosaurs" living land although you are from water rich city coimbatore ?!?  Its a very dry land only plenty of wind mills are around my farm. 

So I had to search someone who can find the ground water at least 300 m depth (Over 1000 feet). By googling I found a young man who uses 4 different methods to find the water for a land like ours. He is a geologist as well. 

😉

He was there on our land with the machine and took ground water profile at each and every inch of our land for couple of hours. He found one spot and he marked it. 

💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓

After two weeks time he sent us the image and he said the spot he mentioned is the best place to dig. He told us to dig at least minimum1000 feet. 

So we called upon the drillers and my father and I went to the place to look after the process. 

It was a very long day and I was anxious if we get water or not. I had plan B if we dont get water I want to sell the place and buy another land. But not to give up on farming 😆. 

So in India everything starts from a prayer.

And the moment happened that water flowed from drill hole was the most happiest moment of that day. 

So we found a water spot on the Dinosaurs living land.😉😅   

So only at this point starts the farming business..... The drill depth is 330 m 😀

With the happy ending I will continue my journey on the next post.

Year 2025 : PK Paradise name choice

I wanted to give a name for my home and garden where I live and I was thinking of few options like having my grandfathers name (Ayyavu) because he was the inspiration for me to have this idea.

Also I was thinking to give Russian name of Dacha (Country house or cottage in Russian) and I couldnt go through with that because of Jeeva (My nephew, the true Property Owner 😍).

Then,

One day I was walking in my farm and I found a wood piece and I took it as I was in a mood of painting and I started writing PK Paradise. 😊

So I got a name! 

 

Before turnung into Paradise, the land in 2022: Property Purchase

March 2022: The first and only land I saw and I just decided to buy it straight away. Nothing I knew about this place and people I am going to live with. Bold move I would say.😃 Only thing was going in my mind is how am I going to turn this place to be so green in an organic way without having any knowledge about farming ?!?

somehow I was so confident that there are always wise people around us to help and my job would be just to find them and ask their help and get their unconditional support. 😀

I am Porkodi Kadhirvel finised my Ph.D in Chemistry (European Universities) and did 5 Post Doctoral researches in different European countries. I was dreaming about obtaining the prestigious Grant of Marie Skłodowska-Curie and once I got it and I decided to switch my carrier to Farming. My beloved Professor, well wisher and a Friend Dr. Manuel Azenha could not be convinced and accepted my decision. He didnt believe it either 😅. With few months of telling him and when I bought the land he knew that I was serious and I am going to go back to India and start farming....