Monthly Updatesㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ

Our poultry continued to be a major focus this month. We remodeled all the nest boxes, adding more perches and relooked at some of the practices to ensure efficiency and better living conditions for the birds. We were also audited by the Certified  Home  »  Blog  »  Monthly Updates Monthly Updates January 2026​ · AuroOrchard Poultry Our poultry continued to be a major focus this month. We remodeled all the nest boxes, adding more perches and relooked at some of the practices to ensure efficiency and better living conditions for the birds. We were also audited by the Certified Humane International (https://certifiedhumane.org/) for certification. Our experience with this certification has been a great learning experience and we are happy that soon AuroOrchard’s poultry will be one of the few internationally certified poultries for free range in India. Vegetable garden This is a very busy and perhaps the most fulfilling season in terms of planting. We are growing Lettuce, Rugula, Celery, Coriander, Palak, Chili, Brinjal, Ladies Fingers, Pumpkin, Cucumber, Long Beans, Winged Beans and many flowers! The soil feels great after the monsoon and with the cold morning dew and the greens love this weather. We also have a wonderful volunteers’ team which is working hard every day on weeding, composting, pruning and mulching. Orchards This month was mainly for maintenance and harvesting. The Rosella planted in between young Jackfruit and Avocado was harvested in abundance and made into juices, syrups, chutneys and spreads. We also pruned some young Avocados, cleared around the young Mangoes and weeded the newly planted Syntropic Jackfruit and Avocado beds.For the next few months, we need to continue pruning, mulching and make sure that the irrigation for these young orchards is working well. In anticipation of Mango and Avocado flowering soon. Seeds & Nursery This is the season to save seeds. We are planning how much and what to save seeds for the entire year. The nursery is busy as always with more help from Usha, who brings experience, passion and care to this work. In the coming weeks, months, we plan to organise the seeds, continue planting for the season, organise the place and possibly add some more shelves and extend the nursery for more space. Abundance Our team has mainly been busy with Rosella harvesting, cleaning and preserving. The salad boxes have also been really appreciated and take a significant amount of time every morning. It is heartening to hear the feedback from people tasting these products after the weekly farm tours. More help from volunteers and other team members is helping us diversify the recipes and organise this work better. Research & Education The research projects are all going well with separate teams engaged in their own inquiries–natural beekeeping, worm polyculture, conscious technology integration, fruit varieties and the sludge composting by EcoPro. This month we restart the experiments with compost tea. Our growing volunteers’ team is also interested in deepening their learning through some of these projects and they are self-organising discussions and explorations on the farm. November 2025​ Poultry This month has kept us busy troubleshooting the new systems in the poultry as both the birds and us get used to them. The heavy rains and cool weather also got us working on roof leakages and covering the walls with tarpaulins to prevent cold winds entering the coops. Overall the birds’ health is better this month. The youngest flock has been introduced to the free-range and they love it! Vegetable garden We are sowing green manure on the raised beds and preparing them for the winter planting after the monsoon. The monsoon rhythm this year has been quite special and we anticipate we will have a longer growing season. The current planting is being done on the raised beds which have better drainage than the fields. The fields are being kept under sunnhemp cover for the monsoon. We are also using this time to add compost and biomass to the beds. Orchards Since most of the planting was done in the preceding months, the work for this month was maintaining what was planted. The biomass plants like subabool, castor and mexican sunflower have already grown big in the young orchards of jackfruit and avocado. They have been pruned significantly to allow for sun and air circulation, while adding valuable biomass to the soil. The vigorous growth of all the plants in the syntropic system, especially with abundant water in the soil, is heartening to see. We also planted more Papaya plants in the Ramphal-Pineapple block. Seeds & Nursery The nursery is full of vegetable, green and herb seedlings—pumpkin, cucumber, beans, celery, arugula, lettuce, palak, brinjal and ladies’ fingers. Once the rains taper, we’ll begin herbs like coriander. We’ll also plant more perennial saplings, including harmony, subabool, lemongrass and others flowering plants to continue building diversity on the farm. Abundance The room renovations are complete and our team has a new space to organise all the work. More people have also joined the team, bringing in new ideas and approaches. The conversations about how to use food once it is grown have been deeply inspiring. Some new products are also being experimented on and some have already been added to the baskets with encouraging feedback. For the coming month, we would like to focus on preparing for the abundant spring season as well reflect more deeply on the packaging of our products and continue exploring better and natural ways of packing and distributing the food. Research & Education The research projects continue in their own rhythm and pace. We will be restarting our vermicompost project in the coming month. This project combines the wisdom of the indigenous worms with the efficiency of the exotic ones into a single worm polyculture. More details and pictures will shared soon. We also have a new team member who is helping us analyse the data of our production records since 2022. We hope to be able to share this data with you all soon. October 2025​

Year-end updatesㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ

This year has been a year of transformation for the poultry. We completed the full transition from white to brown birds and strengthened our free-range systems, experimenting with new grazing rotations, fodder crops, and improved water and feeding systems. Despite periods of illness and market dips, bird health improved steadily, and we joined the Cage-Free & Free-Range Poultry Producers Association. As we advance on our application for the Humane Farm Animal Care certification, we remain even more committed to building ethical poultry as a core part of the farm. Home  »  Blog  »  Year-end updates Year-end updates December 2025​ · AuroOrchard Poultry This year has been a year of transformation for the poultry. We completed the full transition from white to brown birds and strengthened our free-range systems, experimenting with new grazing rotations, fodder crops, and improved water and feeding systems. Despite periods of illness and market dips, bird health improved steadily, and we joined the Cage-Free & Free-Range Poultry Producers Association. As we advance on our application for the Humane Farm Animal Care certification, we remain even more committed to building ethical poultry as a core part of the farm. Vegetable garden The vegetable garden has had abundant cool-season harvests, successful turmeric and sweet-potato yields, and expansions into wild edible greens and ginger trials. Monsoon months challenged sun-loving crops, but green manure, mulching, and raised-bed drainage helped maintain soil fertility. Burlap tarp experiment was a failure but it taught us something valuable about soil drainage during the monsoon. Throughout the year, we grew a steady diversity—from lettuces, greens, brinjal, ladies fingers, herbs, pumpkins, legumes, and root crops—while working to conserve moisture, add biomass, and refine weed management. Orchards This was our most intensive orchard years, with seven new syntropic and intercropped fruit blocks planted (Papaya-Citrus, Avocado-Papaya, Coconut-Banana, Ramphal-Pineapple, Jackfruit-Papaya, Mango-Citrus, and Hope Jackfruit/Avocado blocks). Despite challenges with Mango and Avocado yields due to rains, the intercropping trials performed well—especially turmeric, pineapple, and pumpkin. We also expanded biomass species, refined pruning cycles, introduced new citrus, and continued cyclone recovery work for Papaya and Banana. Syntropic blocks showed vigorous, synergistic growth and promise as our most efficient orchard-establishment strategy. This work is exceptionally important in guiding our orchard work for the coming year. Seeds & Nursery The nursery was vibrant and dynamic throughout the year, producing a wide range of vegetables, herbs, biomass plants, and fruit saplings. We propagated Jackfruit, Soursop, Papaya, Avocado, Mexican Sunflower, Moringa, Agathi, Subabool, Lemongrass, mint varieties, and other herbs. Community support helped expand our Avocado seedling collection and new Avocado plantations. The nursery played a central role in both orchard expansion and vegetable season planning. Abundance We emphasised the shift from “processing” to food preservation in using what the farm grows in ways that honour nutrition, flavour, and seasonality. This year, we offered a wide range of products—mango conserves, lemon marmalade, basil pesto, cashew items, herbs, brinjal spread, seasonal vegetable recipes, salad mix and so on. A new renovated workspace and a growing team allowed us to experiment more, receive valuable community feedback, and explore natural packaging for the future. We are entering the new year with the aspiration to extend as well as deepen this work. Research & Education We organised all our research projects on our website and prepared a series of courses on vegetable gardening, orchards, animals, and integral food philosophy. Research expanded across natural beekeeping (supported by a seed grant from SDZ, Netherlands), aquaponics, technology integration for irrigation, biofermentation for soil and plant applications, species identification of fruits, and production-data analysis. Most importantly, we continue to deepen our work on natural beekeeping, hive multiplication, and exploring medicinal stingless-bee honey. Previous Article Featured Articles Year-end updatesㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ 20 Dec 2025 Abundance Product of the Month 05 Dec 2025 Ayurvedic Recommendations for Winter 19 Dec 2025 Our Brewery for Plant Health 19 Dec 2025

Abundance Product of the Month

Have you tried our authentic sun-cured lemons preserved with Himalayan salt yet? They are bursting with flavours of lemons and are free from preservatives. Add them to your salads or curries to add a tangy depth. Home  »  Blog  »  Abundance Product of the Month Abundance Product of the Month December 2025 · AuroOrchard Salted & Sun-cured Lemon Have you tried our authentic sun-cured lemons preserved with Himalayan salt yet? They are bursting with flavours of lemons and are free from preservatives. Add them to your salads or curries to add a tangy depth. Order Here October 2025 Turmeric Flakes Our Turmeric roots have been sun-dried and turned into flakes that can be easily infused in some hot honey & lemon tea for the changing weather with a pinch of black pepper. Order Here September 2025 This cold pressed Coconut Oil has been made from coconuts picked from our Coconut poly-orchard with raised beds of bananas and several other plants to support the fertility of this orchard.  With no preservatives added to this oil, it is a healthier alternative to the standard coconut oil available in the market. Order Here August 2025 Basil-Pesto Cashew Product Description: This pesto is rich with AuroOrchard Cashew and Basil both of which we have in abundance at the moment. We use very little oil (one-third) necessary for blending and preventing oxidation. Order Here June 01, 2025 · Anshul Aggarwal Over the last months, we have processed our fresh produce which is in abundance into a variety of products that are available directly from the farm. We hope to slowly expand this activity into a more consistent and significant part of the farm. As the consumption of Auroville produce continues to drop, we feel this is one way we can still offer Auroville grown produce to people within and outside of Auroville. Order Here Previous Article Featured Articles Abundance Product of the Month 05 Dec 2025 Monthly Updatesㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ 28 Nov 2025 Glimpses of a solar futureㅤㅤㅤㅤ 05 Dec 2025 Flow of fire and water on the farmㅤㅤ 03 Dec 2025