here is the rain data since it started. in 3 weeks we have gotten our hearts fill.
| Date | Rain (mm) |
| 21/10 | 50 |
| 23/10 | 57 |
| 25/10 | 15 |
| 27/10 | 57 |
| 28/10 | 21 |
| 29/10 | 55 |
| 30/10 | 6 |
| 31/10 | 61 |
| 3/11 | 60 |
| 6-7/11 | 105 |
| 10/11 | 12 |
| 15-16/11 | 120 |
| Total | 619 |
yes, we have been watching a lot of rain fall.
11 comments:
csm,
did you measure this rain data on-site? did the rain-harvesting structures capture all this rain, or did some overflow to neighboring land? are you harvesting mushrooms?
yes. on site.
we get copious inflows from outside the boundaries and we will be afloat if we do not let some out.
in this area (and district), there are very good systems to allow excess rain water to flow into the local lakes. there is a series of rain water canals which do a decent job.
but guaranteed that we let out much less than we get.
not harvesting mushrooms. still not much dead wood lying unused around for them. if you have fundas please tell.
I have a request: could you post a sequence of photos that show the "greening" of the land from where DV started?
only if you sign off with your real id :-)
Hello
with the reain harvesting you have going at PR how long does it last the water I mean. Will it stay uptil march or so given evaporation etc.
madhavi
paul stamets is the authority on mushrooms, you probably have read his books, but he is from a temperate region. i've heard people do harvest some mushrooms that grow on their own, during the rainy season. although one of stamets' and world's favorite medicinal mushroom "ganoderma", is called devil's mushroom in tamil nadu and is not eaten. magic mushrooms (psilocybes) are another category that is mostly unknown in our country, except for buddhist monks in himalayas.
all the mulch and cow dung should encourage mushrooms. a healthy soil, which is your goal, should have lots of mushroom hyphae. my urban garden with clay pots allow only limited experimentation, but i've seen the rich black top layer (the bottom layers are brownish or red, which seems to have been the original soil) in the western ghats.
madhavi - the swales - which are our rain water harvesting canals - will empty their load into the ground over the next month.
we expect the pond to become a perennial source of water (it dried up in 2009).
anon - we have seen mushrooms around, but not yet sure about classification.
stamets' book is with us. not got to reading it yet.
and as the trees grow huge, mushrooms will grow near their base in the wet season.
and we are quite some time away from healthy soil.
I go with anonymous because that is the easiest. I am usually logged on to my main gmail account, using that for comments would display my name, which I am not keen on. So I have to log off from that and use another account, which I have done occasionally, but it is a pain.
Hello csm I know someone who has a farm near tirupath can identify mushroom, actually the people working at the farm know it. will try and get some tips. the ones that they cook is light brown small head and long stem - not sure the parts of a mushroom - so the description. nothing like button mushroom we all are used to. the texture after cooking is very spongy again unlike buton which after some amount of frying is still firm.
annoy - do you know if other types of mushrooms are available in india, like portobello, shitake - my husband is great fan and we miss it after moving back.
madhavi
i think the ones that are common in south india are the oyster mushrooms (pleurotus), i haven't seem them personally, so can't say for sure. with mushrooms, unless you have the expertise to identify which ones are edible, it is safer to avoid. a bunch of folks who i was with saw several pure white puffballs near coimbatore, thought they were edible, but the tribals told them otherwise. the tribals also mentioned that there are huge mushrooms which you dig out of the ground and eat.
madhavi - shiitake, portobello and other common edible mushrooms are easily grown if you can purchase the spores. buy stamets book on mushroom cultivation.
Another interesting thing is that i found the exact same mushroom that grows in ecuador, south america (http://www.naturalnews.com/photos.html), in coimbatore. some of the other plants in that list of photos also grow in and around coimbatore. lots of plants have migrated along with humans!
I have recently written on some of the issues with container gardens. Would really appreciate your views/comments.
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