Summer, Rain and some fresh vibes!

Time has passed since our last entry, many things have changed, some have remained, and the sun keeps on shining :)

First we would like to thank Ing-Marie and the staff of Auroville Today for publishing a good article about our project, that you can find here. Also to Dhartisatra, who has translated it and published it on his website. Many people have come to us with new ideas and feedbacks, and we feel great being part of this immense project which is Auroville. Also we would like to invite you to give a fresh look at the blog, as some enhancements have been done here and there!

Now we would like to say goodbye to Roberto, who has finished his time in Auroville and will continue to travel throughout South'East Asia. We are very thankful to Roberto, and wish him all the best for his future! Also Kranti, who has been with us for a month and helped us to create a system of documentation, both by drawing on maps of our different zones and building and Excel template that

Kranti

allows us to log every new element in the garden.

You can see this template and its contents at this link (once there, download it to see it properly). The aim of this tool is to enable a monitoring system that will tell us what needs replacement, what is lacking and where we are not using space efficiently. Moreover the Template can be expanded to include a census of every kind of vegetation present in the city centre, namely fruit,vegetables, TDEF species and flowers.

Davide, Nicola and Syam

Balancing this departure we are happy to welcome Davide, who has come from Italy to spend some 3 months with us.

Beside Davide, Nicola and Syam have joined us!
Nicola and Syam, who will also stay some 3 months, are now taking charge of the works on the ground, especially the maintenance of the experimental zone and the green corridor, due to their past experience in agriculture and garden design.

With this great fresh energy we are planning to organise each zone, in these hot months of summer, so that it is ready to host well-functioning models of community gardens by the times of the rains.
This means we have a lot of work to do, and we need some more arms to do it!

Invitation at Mitra Youth Hostel

Indian Beans ready to climb Mitra wall

We have gone again into the garden in Mitra, were we found as a nice surprise some new chilli plants within the herb spiral, put there by the cooking team. We have added a Basil plant, an Aloe Vera and a Lady Finger within the spiral, and some beans on a plastic net that was added to cover the back wall. Finally a watermelon and a pumpkin were planted along the back of the garden (see pictures in album). It was a good day filled with smiles and jokes, and some 5 people from Mitra joined for the work.

We have started to work in front of Townhall,  if you are in Auroville you may have seen a few bananas and other fruit trees (lemons, custard apples, bananas), at the entrance of Townhall area and around the water treatment (fito-depuration) site.

Maison Des Jeunes Kitchen Garden 

Simultaneously we have started working on the kitchen garden of "La Maison Des Jeunes", which will contain a combination of vegetables, fruits, spices and medicinal plants. In MDJ, we are quickly approaching the time of planting, where the people living in that community will be invited to participate and choose what they want to self-produce. We have already planted some passion fruits to go over the kitchen roof!

Passion Fruit

Finally big up to these recent rains were truly a blessing, they gave a boost of life to all the living community around us, making our job easier and less demanding.

Speaking of boost of life.. we have a fundraising page up!

Planting Passion Fruits

Yes we are in great need of some financial donations, so if you feel you can spare a tenner or want to  give a "long-distance" contribution, check out our page on the blog and on the Auronews website (Following the "donate" button).

Thank you all for keeping an eye on us,
may the force be with you!!

Ricky,
for the AV Urban Farming (city centre) Team.