Features

Every field on the farm is managed without synthetic fertilisers or pesticides. Seeds are treated with beejamrit before sowing, and the soil gets regular doses of jeevamrit, a fermented brew of cow dung, urine, jaggery and pulse flour that multiplies soil microbes.

Crop residues go back to the ground as mulch. It keeps moisture in, keeps weeds down and slowly becomes humus. Pests are handled with neem-based and other plant brews, companion planting, and the birds and frogs that a chemical-free farm attracts.

In the Terai, most of the year’s rain falls in three months. We slow it down, spread it and sink it. Swales dug along the contour hold runoff so it soaks into the ground, and the pond stores water for fish, ducks and irrigation.

Mulched, living soil holds far more water than bare soil, so every fistful of organic matter we add is a small reservoir. The result: less pumping, recharged groundwater and crops that cope with dry spells.

A natural forest never needs fertiliser or irrigation, so we copy its structure. Tall canopy trees, then mango, jackfruit and litchi, then banana, papaya and guava, then shrubs, herbs, ground cover, climbers and root crops like turmeric and taro. Each layer uses a different slice of sunlight and soil.

Once it is established, the food forest needs little work, builds soil every year and gives a harvest in almost every season. It is also home to the birds, bees and insects that keep the rest of the farm in balance.

On a single bed we grow a root crop like ginger or turmeric under the soil, leafy greens on the surface, a medium-height crop such as brinjal or chilli, and gourds climbing a bamboo-and-wire trellis overhead.

The layers shade and protect each other, the ground is never bare, and one plot gives four harvests at different times. It is a model small Terai farmers can copy to earn more from less land, and one we teach in our trainings.

Every week we pack 6–8 kinds of vegetables and greens, whatever is at its best in the field that week. No cold storage and no middlemen. Just food that was growing in living soil a few hours earlier.

The box is the simplest way to eat with the seasons and to support farming that restores the land. Message us on WhatsApp to ask about this week’s box and pickup.

The farm is laid out in permaculture zones. The kitchen garden and nursery sit closest to the house, then vegetables and animals, then grain fields, the food forest and the pond. Things we visit daily are near, and things that look after themselves are further out.

Nothing works alone. Ducks weed the paddy and manure the pond. Fish eat pests and fertilise the water that irrigates the fields. Cows give milk plus the dung and urine for jeevamrit. Crop waste feeds the animals and the compost. Waste from one part is food for another.