It would be unfair to doubt the intentions of anyone who wants to build a farmhouse and enjoy proximity to nature, clean air, the quietness et all. However, it will be fair to assume that the road of intention to final execution is fraught with lack of understanding, lack of guidance and an end result that may look fancy but ends up taking so much away from the same natural ecosystem that you set out to enjoy.
We had the good fortune of finding the right guidance at the earliest stage of our journey in the good folk at Ananas – one of the best known ecological design teams in the country.
When we set out to plan the Earthness™ farm, we too had the best intentions in mind. What took us a little while to understand was the true limitations of the knowledge we possessed. I will outline a few steps here that we were guided to take along the way. Steps that I realize now to be invaluable and non-negotiable.
Walking The Land
As simple as this sounds, it is what it is. The more you literally walk your land, the less it will feel like acreage and the more it will begin to live and breathe in your heart. The curves, the bends, the rises, the shrubs, the trees, the fallen leaves, the thorns, the droppings of an animal yet unknown to you, the bird nests, the sounds, the sun, the wind, – it takes time and repeated journeys to register the nuances. The more you walk your land, the more you will feel a part of it, It’s like moving into a new neighborhood. Many walks later, everything will become muscle memory.
Understanding The Location
Something you would have done. As simple as seeing the location on Google Maps. The area, the coordinates (latitude, longitude) and elevation. This is as basic as identifying where the land exists and its extent.
Understanding The Climate
On one hand is the technical classification of the climate of the region, on the other hand is what it means for you in simple terms. The climate study shared by the Ananas team for Earthness™ identified the climate type as Tropical Savannah as per the Koppen-Geiger climate classification system. However, given its proximity to Bengaluru city, the team found considerable influence of the Semi Arid climate type as well. What this implied was that the farm location would see distinct dry periods and wet monsoons – each lasting about six months. And given the trend over the past 30 years, each season would become more and more extreme.
Why is this important? It impacts everything – the kind of plants and trees that are suited for this climate. The water requirement that you will need to plan for ahead of every season. The design of the farmhouse itself so that it stays cool in the heat, shielded from the rain and designed to harvest the rain water for use in the dry periods.
Further data sourcing from the Indian Meteorological Department gave us the rainfall data for the last 100 years, the entry and exit months for the South West Monsoon and the North East Monsoon. May-September being the heaviest rainfall periods followed by another shorter period between October-November. With September promising to be the wettest month. We also got 24 hour temperature charts by month and solar energy data for the region from WeatherSpark – useful when designing solar micro-grids.
And then came wind data, again from WeatherSpark. The average of mean hourly speed 10 meters above the ground, we found, ranged from a high of 23.6 kph to a low of 10.6 kph. Again, knowing wind data helps in deciding where to plant trees to break the wind flow as well as plan the ventilation and natural airflow in the farm house itself.
Understanding The Soil
Samples collected 6 inches below the ground revealed our soil type as loamy – which means soil that has roughly equal parts of silt, clay and sand. With higher nutrient content and more suited for drainage, air filtration and moisture retention. This kind of soil, we were informed, was well suited for gardening and growing food. It also meant, that we would need to plan for some sort of lining if we intended to create any water body like a pond. All in all, this was good news for us who were keen to grow food on the land.
Next came up the Bio Region. Something I will take up in the second part of the post. Till then, thank you for reading till here and I hope this helps you when your turn comes.
