Fruits, from the natural farm
Around 7yrs (2017) ago we started doing farming in our ancestral property now named as ತಾತನ ತೋಟ (Grandpa’s Farm), we decided to transform the baren land into fruit forest (design of the farm layout written in our earlier post : https://bhaskarak.medium.com/fruit-forest-90ce8e7f4e61) — over the last few years we have started harvesting the fruits from this farm & in this story want to share the joy of harvesting around 24 fruits.
Most of the photos in this blog post are the first fruit harvest from the plants, all the way from 2018 (Banana) to 2024 (Kaffir Lime) & the best part of visiting the farm now is through the year (other than couple of months) there will be some or the other fruit to pluck from the tree & eat them (usually we would have several of them ripe in the trees sometimes).
Sections below has name of the fruit, # of month / years for first harvest, season of harvest & brief notes about each fruit.
- Banana, 11 months, year long : You will get 1 harvest per plant, then next set of shoots come. Need to manage the # of shoots to leave, so they get the nutrition to grow well
- Custard Apple, 2 yrs, June — August : Grafted variety will harvest within 2yrs, or even earlier — but it’s good to pluck off the buds of first year, so the plant grows healthy for long term harvesting
- Guava, 4–6 months, multiple seaasons : Grafter variety would harvest within 4–6months, guava tree / fruit is prone for diseases. It will require special attention at the farm
We had grown Badami variety of Mangoes in another farm, and wanted to try different varieties here, and ended up putting Mallika (lovely big fruit, weights up to 500gms per fruit), Banganpalle & Dasheri (small, but excellent sweet)
4. Mango, 3–4yrs, April — July : It really depends on age of saplings, we bought a 2yr old saplings & started getting harvest of Mallika variety after 3yrs, subsequent years we started harvesting other varieties (Banganpalle, Dasheri)
5. Malaysian Apple, 2+ yr, March — May : Fastest growing plant, if you are looking for quick shade giving tree in your farm, get this & will start giving fruits from 2+ yrs
6. Avocado (Butter Fruit), 2+ yrs, May — August : We have plants that are grafted, non grafted & from cuttings (rooting on the tree stem). Plants from cuttings have started fruiting early, and based on quality of seed even non grafted have come within 3yrs
7. Cashewnut, 2 yrs, May : Slow growing tree, but will sart flowering / fruits by first year, but its good to let plan grow & then look for the fruits
8. Papaya, 8–9 months, All Seasons : We had grown red lady variety of papaya on the entire 5 acres before going into fruit forest, it’s a fruit that is year long, if you plant them at different times. Great fruit to start the day!
It’s an acquired taste to eat Star Fruit & Soursop (Lakshman Pala), one of we only have a two star fruit trees & they are almost year long, and give lot of fruits. You know some trees love you so much, and they keep giving fruits!
9. Star Fruit, 1 yr, All Seasons : You are lucky if you get a sapling that will yield fruits that are not sour, we had 50% luck, until this year we didn’t realise it was one of the tree was giving the sweet ones, now we are nurturing that plant better than sour one!
10. Chilli Guava, 1 yr, All Seasons (Except Summer) : We just have 1 fruit, when you eat this — it tastes like eating guava with some salt / chilli sprinkled on it. Small fruit, wish this would grow into a bigger fruit, as you will get a lot of seeds when you eat.
11. Raamphal, 3+ yrs, November — February : Family of Custard Apple, gives a lot of pulp, but a bit of bland taste — quite hardy fruit, with a thick stem attached to the fruit
12. Tender Coconut, 4–6 yrs, All Seasons : One in picture is dwarf variety, that comes within 3–4yrs, but the regular tender coconut (that becomes into coconut) will need 5+ yrs for you to harvest
13. Sapota, 3–4 yrs, March — June : Our plants have taken more than 6yrs, because we were trimming / removing off the buds when it was young, to help the plant grow healthy
14. Soursop, 3+ yrs, December — March : Bushy plant & not a strong one, couple of them fell down when there was huge winds at the farm. Taste like a combination of custard apple & orange. Excellent source of medicinal value for cancer patients
If you grow cocoa, should plant at least 40+ saplings, we only have about 6–8 plants & this fruit needs a lot of processing, feel bad that we have not processed any of them into chocolate yet.
15. Cocoa, 3 yrs, All Seasons : Fruit that takes multiple colors, before its ready to harvest, small bushy plant & grows with little attention once the sapling survives the initial care
16. Fig, 1–6 yrs, All Seasons : Saplings come in 2 variety (bushy, tree variety), later one will need 5–6yrs to harvest an edible fruit with good size, taste. Another fruit that is year long & every week on my visit will munch on this while going around the farm
17. Amla, 6 yrs, January — March : Needs a careful selection of saplings, variety we have planted seems to yield small size fruit that is not in much demand. Also the tree is prone for disease attacks & hard to prune / manage the pests naturally
18. Jamun, 7+ yrs, June — August : We have around 30+ trees of Jamun, hoping they are all good size ones, again this fruit will be hard to sell, if they are small size. We just had 6–8 fruits last season, waiting for a real harvest in 2024
19. Jackfruit, 3–5 yrs, April — September : We have at least 4–6 varieties (flavours) of Jackfruit, started harvesting from 2023, we love the fruit at home. Can’t wait for a bumper harvest in 2024 as many more trees are fruits now, first set would be shared with friends / family & then consider selling them
We bought a new sapling of Kokum sapling in 2023, thinking we didn’t have this fruit at farm & later realised we had one kokum plant in our farm from 6yrs ago, love this fruit for its sour taste, and apparently in parts of Maharashtra people use this instead of tamarind in cooking
20. Kokum, 7 yrs, December — February : Tree grows like christmas tree tall & shaped like a cone, our first harvest has been this year 2024. Lot of fruits fell down before they formed the full pulp, but even those fallen ones were good to eat
21. Lemon, 6 yrs, All Seasons : Thorny plant & not an easy one to grow (or we got bad saplings), lost nearly 20 saplings we now have 6 or so remaining & one of them has started fruiting
22. Elikai, 7 yrs, All Seasons : Kaffir Lemon, used for putting pickle in South India, just 1 tree is enough for 3–4 families, we have put this for home usage only
23. Jujube, 4 yrs, September — December : Starts growing as shrub, but eventually will become a tree, prone for red flying insect that eats up all the leaves & hard to get even a single fruit. Best to eat when it’s semiriped
24. Orange, 2 yrs, All Seasons : Hybrid variety, that seem to give fruit as a young plant, we bought couple of them — one is struggling to survive. We barely had 1 fruit from this in past 3yrs
Along with above fruit trees, we have a few timber trees like — Malabar Neem, Teak, Mahogany, Bamboo & Honne and few trees for creating a bio diversity in the farm.
Finally to wrap up this long post, below are some of the insights / learnings from our (me, my wife — Lakshmi & labourers at farm) past 7+ yrs of journey at being a weekend farmer:
- Growing plants naturally means, you need to be ready to loose a lot of saplings for disease, the worse of them is Pomogranate — probably have only 3 -4 plants from the 80 saplings we had planted
- Avoid bringing non native plants, it sounds great to buy apple, pears saplings from nursery, but they wont survive without proper care & pesticide management
- Doing regular soil nutrition care is important, by use of Jivamruta / Cow dung based manure
- Managing the water needs of different plants is important, we have drip irrigation & few plants required more water, that required some tweak in drip line / fittings
- Most cherished moments are weekend morning walks at farm, enjoying the fruits in farm, that can be eaten without having to wash them!
- Lastly seeing the plants grow slowly, over several seasons / years has taught me a lot of patience, perseverance that has helped me on personal & professional front.
Thanks for your time in reading this post.
