May was a month of intense heat and rains and we started experimenting with making Arisi Vadam (Rice Fryums) with Karunkuruvai riceTested our Killu Vathal. Our farm stay guests loved it and we were sold out even before listing them on our online storeAll veggies in the plate from the farmVeggie garden started giving us enough vegetables to start selling locally. Our first customers are our employees always. Which colour of Brinjal do you like?Fresh greens get sold out very quickly. Who doesn’t love Keerai Kadayal?Mangoes! We enjoyed and sold so many sendhooram mangoes from Blooming Farms and Kurinji Farms
The cows enjoyed the summer and the occasional rains that gave them tender grass to graze on
June 2026
We had an amazing harvest of turmeric this year. Barring a small plot where there was excessive shade, the productivity of the rest of the land was very encouraging. Turmeric Powder isn’t going to get sold itself. Come visit our store or message us to order! 🙂Soap making has resumed in July after a large gap. Coconut oil that our network was producing was being prioritised for sale for edible use all these months. And the departure of Dinesh from our team meant we were short staffed the last couple of months.
Krishnan from Thrissur had a short scare after we were found lacking in safety procedures while soap making. Thanks to his presence as a volunteer in June, @papanasambaba restarted soap making.
Plain and Turmeric variants are back in stock in the store. Only 5 ingredients : Coconut oil, sesame oil, water, lye and salt.Vaanavil Farm Stay has had a good occupancy this year. Despite no air conditioning , the lime plastered walls build with bricks and mud mortar are keeping the rooms and guests cooler in this hot summer. We have had several guests from Chenna who are repeating patrons. We plan to expand our agro tourism efforts by managing another property in a nearby organic farm from August onwards.As the years progress, our meals have slowly started to include more 1. fibre rich & micro nutrient rich millets 2. protein rich whole produce such as legumes, tofu, eggsThe veggie garden has been producing enough harvest that the frequency of trips to the daily market has reduced quite a bit. Ladies finger, brinjal, tomato and gourds are the most common veggies grown in this region. Because of commercial cylinder shortage, the rice mills nearby weren’t able to roast Idiyappam Flours. Nellaiappar and Karunkuruvai Idiyappam flours are back in stock. Our farm stay guests love both these variants. We do too! Naatu Thakkali soup with home churned butter from our free range cows’ milk is a lip smacking appetiser for light dinners. View of the western ghats and the farm from atop the upcoming Blooming Farm Stay! Mantis Praying to let us inside the house?We couldn’t identify this variety at Blooming Farms, the farm where we are going to host the next farm stay. We sold a small batch calling it Rumani. But we are now not so sure. Do you know which variety this must be?Our shop has gotten promoted from a farm shop to a retail shop in Vikramasingapuram town. All shipments now happen from the new shop. Thanks to your continuous support, we have been able to grow our organic groceries & artisanal crafts business slowly and surely!
We are in the process of making a massive batch of amchur powder for our friends at O’ Naturale Farm at Pune.
As you might know, we intend to homeschool Vanya. She is now 4.5 years. She understands the concept of schools now – and she is curious about it because her cousins and some of her friends in our circles go to school. So our debates as a family is to convince her about how amazing the farm and our travels are as a school.
We wish we could travel more often. We have come a far way ahead from our humble beginnings at the farm. But i don’t know if leaving the farm frequently is a good idea yet. Despite having employed the same 6 people for the last 4 years, we have not yet reached a stage where we are able to entrust the supervision to any one person. We have either not yet found a good leader or able to effectively communicate our vision for the land with the team. And the maturity to understand the needs of organic farming doesn’t yet exist in civil society.
Podcast Appearance
When Shiv Kumar reached out to me to feature our story at WildRainbow EcoVentures for his new podcast initiative, I was mostly thrilled. The worries that I had about what others will think about me having undertaken a small agri business in a non descript Tamil Nadu town after graduating from such a prestigious institute resurfaced for a bit. But the conversation with Shiv during his stay at Vaanavil was a breeze. And the podcast has turned out really well. Take a look!
During the MBA programme at Indian School of Business , Sukhmeet Singh provided us the opportunity to work on a ELP project with the Government or Punjab for improving farmers income with maize as a crop. It was one of the sparks that resulted in me pursuing a grassroots initiative.
It is not just a business that I am developing & improving continuously, but also employment, holistic health and lifestyle.
While scaling up and funding are not part of my conversations anymore, inspiring others and letting the movement of sustainability grow beyond just our farm is one of my objective of life beyond 40.
