Grower's

Handbook
A farmizen's guide to growing
chemical-free food
Table of Contents

1. Introduction

2. The Role Consumers Play

3. Fixing the Food System

4. 3 types of Farmizen Farms

5. What Farmizen is Not

6. Farming Method

7. Things TODO Post Sign Up

8. Your Mini-farm Layout

9. Common Area

10. Visiting Your Farm

11. Harvesting and Home Deliveries

12. Planning Your Mini-farm

13. Custom Crops

14. Combo Beds - Advantages and Disadvantages

15. Crop Updates & Empty Beds

16. How to Maximize Your Yield

17. Sharing Your Produce

18. Barter Hour

19. Quality of Vegetables

20. De-weeding

21. Crop Failures

22. Sharing Your Login

23. Miscellaneous Tips

24. Group Chat Etiquette

25. Contacting Support
Introduction

Our food system is broken. 

We eat food laced with poison everyday. Even when we buy fresh produce
marketed to us as organic, as most of us know, a fairly large percentage of that is
not really organically grown. The increased occurrence of diseases such as
cancer, is a direct result of this.

On the other hand, our farmers are in great distress. Dwindling incomes along
with production, distribution and financing inefficiencies have made it
impossible for Indian farmers to earn living wages predictably. As a result, they
are resorting to using more and more chemicals to reduce their risk and stop
their income from falling.

And finally, our top-soil, which has been amongst the best in the world, has been
deteriorating rapidly and soil productivity has touched an all-time low.
Earthworms and soil microbe populations are dwindling and we need more and
more external harmful inputs every season to sustain the same production level
as the earlier growing season.

This seems like a vicious cycle - and it worsens everyday. 

At Farmizen, we are trying to fix this and build a system that is better for you,
better for our farmers, and better for the planet. We wrote this grower's guide to
explain how the whole process works. Happy reading !

Shameek
CEO, Farmizen 
The Role Consumers Play

Our everyday decisions as consumers, directly impact our food system. 

When we are at the supermarket aisle, discarding that tomato which looked
crooked, or that spinach bundle which had some holes in it, or the beetroot
which is too small, or the cauliflower with a yellow tinge - the message that we
send to our farmers is simple and brutal : we tell them - "the single most
important factor is how your produce looks. I will buy your stuff only if your
produce looks flawless, irrespective of whether it's healthy or not".

Unfortunately, this sets up wrong incentives for our farmers - and it's not a
surprise when they start using overdoses of fertilizers to grow produce faster,
overdoses of pesticides to make sure there are no holes, inject steroids to make
the gourds bigger, bleach the cauliflowers to make them white, and so on. When
a small farmer in India, has his back against the wall, with his livelihood at risk -
such short term risk mitigation efforts are not surprising.

This directly leads to two problems -

a. we, as consumers, suffer - we end up eating beautiful but poisonous produce
b. our soil suffers - tainted with chemicals.

So, in some sense, fixing the food system starts with us consumers - we need to
re-consider what's important to us - is it how the produce looks - or is it how
healthy it is to consume. We need to get to know the farmer who helps grow our
food, understand issues that impact production and collaborate with him to fix
the food system - together.
Fixing the Food System

Any modifications to the food system must benefit the three key stakeholders -
farmers, consumers and the soil. Here is how the Farmizen model helps all 3
stakeholders:

A. Farmers get paid a fixed amount every month - so they have NO incentive to
adopt practises harmful to the soil. They focus on production, while Farmizen
takes care of distribution, marketing, inputs and know-how. There are adequate
checks and balances against any violation - crowdsourced audits, surprise visits
etc. All agri inputs are provided by Farmizen, to ensure no chemicals get used.

B. Consumers get food they can trust from a specific farm. You stay updated
through the app - so when you get your veggies, you know exactly when it was
planted, when it flowered, what fertilizers were applied etc. Every week, you get
fresh locally grown seasonal food, free of chemicals - delivered directly to our
doorsteps, or harvested by you at the farm. Even if you yourself cannot visit the
farm, other consumers keep coming to the farm - thus keeping an eye out for
you.

C. Soil quality improves - we follow a natural farming methodology, heavily

relying on mulching, indigenous microbe solutions, activation of local
earthworms and multi-cropping. This continually improves the soil quality and
the biological activity in the soil - instead of the industrial chemical farming
methodology, which essentially kills the soil and the micro-organisms living in it.
3 types of Farmizen Farms

There are 3 types of Farmizen farms. Not all of them maybe available in your
area:

1. Regular:

In this type of farm, which is the majority of Farmizen farms, you are allocated a
600/400 sft patch of land, split into 12 raised beds - and you control each of the
beds using the Farmizen app. Deliveries start when some of your crops are ready
for harvest, and it is completely up to you on how you want to do your crop
planning, which crops you want to grow, and so on. You can also drop in anytime
and work on your mini-farm, and harvest your own produce. This model is best
for those who want a full fledged farming experience and want to learn about
farming, in addition to getting a supply of vegetables.

2. Shared:

In this type of farm, you grow vegetables as a group with other subscribers. Crop
planning is done by farmers, taking your inputs - the app asks you for a list of
vegetables you love and vegetables you hate - and the farmer uses this list in
aggregrate to decide on-going cropping plans at the farm. Of course, he filters
these lists based on what grows well at the farm, and what grows well in that
particular season. You can drop in anytime and volunteer at the overall farm. If
you want to take back some harvest with you, you need to request the farmer
and he would harvest some veggies in your presence and give them to you. You
do not have a separate patch of land that you can play with - so this model is not
suitable for those who want to experiment on their own. On the other hand, this
model has the highest yield compared to other models because the farmer is
able to control crop planning, crop rotation, cover cropping, soil resting etc.
You also get more varieties week over week - because you are not restricted to
only vegetables growing in your own patch. This model is most suitable for those
who cannot come to the farm often or are most interested in a consistent and
varied yield of vegetables.

3. Half and half:

In this type of farm, you control 6 beds in a 300 sft space, while the farmer
controls the remaining 300 sft. This model gives you flexibility, control and fun
experience of a separate patch of land, while also retaining the advantages of
having a farmer make crop planning and crop rotation decisions. This model is
suitable for those who are looking for consistent supply of vegetables but are
also interested in participating in the process of growing, sometimes. You can
drop in to the farm for a self-harvest or to do some hands-on stuff on your 300
sft patch.
What Farmizen is Not

Farmizen is NOT an organic veggie delivery service. 

We built Farmizen as a way to grow your own food, and we try to make the
process more practical by providing weekly deliveries, for when you cannot
come to the farm, raw materials so that you don't need to run around procuring
seeds, saplings, fertilizers etc., and labour and expertise from the farmers in
charge.

How is this different from a organic veggie delivery service? 

For starters, there is no guarantee on which crops will grow well and which crops
will fail. You pay for inputs, not for outputs. Sometimes, you will get bountiful
yields, maybe even more than your family can consume, and at other times you
may get harvests which are lacking in quantity or quality.
Second, a very essential part of the Farmizen experience is visiting your farm at
least once a month - this will give you a very clear idea of how each crop is
growing, so you can make more informed choices about what to plant.
Frequent visits, coupled with thoughtful planning of the crops in your bed, based
on your consumption patterns, will give you better results. (For shared farms, you
just need to provide your inputs in the crop preferences page about vegetables
you like and vegetables you hate - farmers do the crop-planning for the entire
group of subscribers).
Third, if this was an organic veggie delivery service, we would do grading and
sorting at the farm after harvesting, and only send produce which is above a
threshold in terms of appearance. For example, if we found a hole in a Brinjal, we
would not send it. However, in this model, we would send across even partially
affected produce from your mini-farm - because all the produce belongs to you,
and individual farmizens have different preferences on what they want to do
with partially affected produce. Some farmizens cut off affected areas, and
consume the rest, while others compost the affected veggies.
Farming Method

The farming methodology we follow at Farmizen partner farms is heavily

inspired by ZBNF (Zero Budget Natural Farming), a method popularized by
Padmashri Subhash Palekar. 
     ZBNF focusses on using minimal inputs from outside the farm - and that's
where we diverge slightly from ZBNF. For example, ZBNF would recommend
preparing Neemastram from Neem leaves and branches at the farm, whereas we
supply our partner farmers with Neem Oil - since that saves the labour effort
involved in preparing Neemastram. This method of farming focusses on
improving the soil by re-introducing microbes back into the soil and activating
local earthworms. The four pillars of ZBNF are:

Beejamrutha - seeds and saplings are treated with beejamrutha, which is a

concoction made from local cow dung, local cow urine and a little bit of lime to
balance the pH. The concoction helps the young roots fight against fungal
attacks and other soil pathogens.

Jeevamrutha - this is an indigenous microbe solution prepared by fermenting a

mixture of water, local cow dung, local cow urine, a handful of soil (to introduce
microbes which will multiply in the microbe culture), jaggery (for providing
energy for cell division) and pulse flour (for providing to make the cell bodies
during cell division of microbes). Jeevamrutha is applied on the soil as well by
spraying on leaves - this introduces back microbes into the soil and also protects
the plants against diseases. The microbes introduced form a symbiotic
relationships with root hairs and help plants absorb nutrients already present in
the soil. The microbes help plants absorb nutrients while the root hairs of the
plant provides carbohydrate to the microbes in return -  a beautiful natural
system.

 Mulching - waste biomatter like dry leaves or paddy straw is placed on the           
 soil - this prevents weeds, reduces trans-evaporation of water and the mulch       
 gradually decomposes to form humus layer on the soil. This also provides a         
 shelter for the microbes and earthworms, by avoiding direct soil exposure to       
 the hot Indian sun.

 Wapsa - it's critical to maintain the right level of mixture of water vapour and 
 air inside soil vacuoles accessible to root hairs of the plant. For this the soil         
 must be loose and have the right perforation as well as water retention.               

 Based on the characteristics of the soil in question, we advise farmers on the       

 right proportions of materials like cocopeat, rice husk etc which can bring             
 the  soil to the correct levels of porosity and water retention. In regular                 
 farming, tilling of the land before every cultivation, helps get the soil to the         
 right structure - however, the process of tilling ends up killing much of the           
 earthworm population on the topmost layers. We follow a till-once                         
 methodology, where the farm is tilled only once - and after that we rely on           
 activating local earthworm populations, to keep burrowing tunnels in the             
 soil, thus making it loose and allowing the right Wapsa to be present.

So, in a nutshell, getting microbe and local earthworm populations back, and
focussing on improving soil quality, is core to our method of farming. In terms of
pest control, our philosophy is to use only natural pest repellants like Neem oil,
ginger-garlic-chilli spray etc - these are usually natural concoctions which have
pungent odours that repel pests. We also use pheromone traps, solar pest traps
etc. And finally, we plant pest-trap crops like mustard greens or natural pest
repellants like marigold - to repel pests. You will also find corn planted in many
of our farms - these act as perching spots for birds - natural predators that feed
on caterpillars and other bugs. We following multi-cropping and we recommend
you do crop rotation in individual beds of your mini-farm - this enables us to
work WITH the soil, rather than AGAINST it - by avoiding taking out the same set
of. nutrients over and over again.

Since we do not use any chemicals for pest control, it is normal to find a part of
your produce spoilt by pest attacks. In general, you can expect 10-20% of
your produce to be affected by pests even in the best of circumstances.
Things TODO Post Sign Up

This is a checklist of a few things you should do as soon as you sign up:

▢ Go to your My Plots/Subscriptions page and click on Manage

Plot/Subscriptions - make any changes that you want to by clicking on the
beds and choosing different plants. Once you make the choices, you have 24
hours to make any changes. After that the bed is locked and instructions sent
to the farmers - and you won't be able to make changes to the beds till the
farmers have planted the crops.  In case of shared farms, you can tweak your
crop preferences in this page.

▢ Go to your account settings page and check if your delivery address, map
location and pincode are correct. The app lets you book a farm based on your
pincode - if you have mentioned the pincode erroneously, we may not be
able to deliver to your location. Please avoid using office address as a
delivery address.

▢  Please update an alternate number in account settings page - we use this if

the primary number is unreachable during deliveries. Also let your apartment
security know that you will be expecting Farmizen deliveries.

▢ Please schedule a visit to the farm as soon as possible. This is especially

important if you have booked a plot which was occupied by a different
customer earlier, since some of your beds may already have crops growing in
them - and a visit will help you understand which beds to replace or replant.
If there were pre-existing crops in your beds, you may choose to retain or
replace them, based on how they are doing. Even in case of a shared farm,
where the farmer is making all decisions on your behalf, it is a great idea to
go and meet the farmer who grows your food, and build a relationship with
him, and see how crops are grown at the farm.
▢  Read this grower's guide - this should answer most of the questions you may
be thinking about !

.
Your Mini-farm Layout

Regular mini-farm model

Your mini-farm is laid out as above, on ground. When you visit the farm, find your
mini-farm/plot number in the app and look for the placard with the same
number.  The placard is placed in between Bed 1 and Bed 2*, which are joined
together to avoid wastage of space. This exactly mirrors how your plot looks in
the Manage Plot section in your app. There are six rows of raised beds - and each
row is divided into two beds which are physically joined together.
* One exception is Big Banyan Farm - where the placard with plot number is
placed at the corner of bed 1 - top left corner in the image above.
In case of farms with the half-n-half model, which is a new model we are
experimenting with (for example, in Green Leaves Farm) - the consumer rents out
a 600 sft space. This 600 sft is divided into a 300 sft plot with 6 beds which you
control using your app. The remaining 300 sft is part of a common pool which
the farmer plans, manages and controls. The rationale behind this is to make sure
we can focus on vegetables which ripen quickly, and grow them in a common
pool instead of individual plots - this way we can harvest the vegetables when
they are the correct size. In individual plots you can grow those vegetables which
can be harvested once a week without major over-ripening problems.

If you have subscribed to a half-n-half farm your individual 300 sft mini-farm is
laid out as below, on the ground. 

Half-n-half model

If you have subscribed to a shared farm model, you do not have a separate patch
of land - the entire farm's produce is shared between all subscribers to the farm.
Common Area

In the 600/400 sft mini-farm model with 12 beds, in each partner farm, about
5% of the overall farm is set aside as a common area. In the common area, we
plant excess saplings from our nursery, and experimental seeds and plants. We
also plant longer growth cycle plants like Papaya, Curry Plant etc. Produce from
the common area is distributed with your regular weekly harvest - you can also
harvest from the common area when you come and visit the farm for a self-
harvest.
We request you to harvest maximum 2-3 kg from the common area at a time, so
that there is enough to share with others as well. Please ask the farmer to show
you which the common areas are - they will be happy to do so.

In case of half-n-half model farms, half of the entire farm is a common area -
consumer controls 300 sft and farmers control the remaining 300 sft as part of a
common pool. In half-n-half farms, you cannot harvest from the common area
yourself - you can harvest only from your own plot when you come for a self-
harvest. Farmers distribute produce from the common area in each weekly
harvest to everyone.

In case of a shared farm, the entire farm is a common area ! You cannot harvest
from the farm yourself (this is to prevent any mis-use :-( ) - please ask the farmer
who would harvest veggies you want and give them to you.
Visiting Your Farm

You can visit your mini-farm anytime. In fact, it is highly recommended that you
visit your farm whenever you can, at least once a month ideally, because of the
following advantages:

a. You get a better sense of growing status of each bed – at a more granular level
than the app can update you on.

b. You get some dirt under your fingernails – and this is awesome for health.
Multiple research reports have proven the presence of microbes in the soil,
which enter our body when we do gardening or farming, and these microbes
regulate stress hormone levels. So, coming to the farm is actually good for your
health !

c. You can pick and choose vegetables at the tenderness/ripeness level you
prefer. If you rely only on home deliveries, we send vegetables on the day of
your harvest from your plots – we cannot take into account individual
preferences because it would add way too much operational overhead !

d. You can choose to pick up some, and give away the rest if you want to – you
can leave them with the farmer, and we will ask one of our not-for-profit partners
to come and collect, or share it with other farmizens who drop in.

Farmers are usually there at the farms, Monday to Saturday 9 am to 5 pm. For
your first couple of visits, it is recommended you come within these times so you
can get help from the farmer in identifying your mini-farm, common areas etc.
Please be patient -  they may not always be able to help you immediately,
especially if they are busy with harvesting, since those tasks must be completed
within a particular timeline in order to have our delivery trucks leave the farm on
time.
Please try to use the schedule visit functionality in the app - that helps
farmers plan when they should try to be at the farm.

When you do come to the farm – here are some things to keep in mind:

1. Get a hat, some sun-screen, and some water.

2. Get 1-2 big bags, knives and scissors to use as harvesting tools.
3. Ask the farmer to show you the common area – you can harvest from the
common area, in addition to harvesting from your own plot. However, please
restrict harvests from the common area to 2-3 kgs maximum, so that there is
enough for other Farmizens as well ! Note that, for half-n-half farms, you can
only harvest from your own plot - and not from the common area, which is
half of the overall area in the farm.
4. Note that, for self-harvests, you are supposed to harvest your crops yourself.
Farmers can show you how to do it , if you are not sure – but please avoid
asking them to harvest it for you – since that interferes with their regular
work schedules.
5. Under no circumstances, should you harvest from someone else’s mini-farm
even if you spot a tempting veggie or two !

We put together a document that shows you how you should be harvesting each
crop in your bed – please refer to it. Most of your harvesting doubts should be
addressed by it. Key point to keep in mind is that some greens like Spinach,
Lettuce etc are multi-cut - you should be cutting a few leaves from each plant,
while letting the plant continue to grow.

Download the harvesting pictorial guide by clicking the link below – keep it with
you for a ready reference when you visit the farm next:

https://bit.ly/2wgOBoZ

For shared farms, you do not need to get anything, beyond a bag to take
vegetables the farmer harvests for you !
Harvesting and Home
Deliveries

Once some of your plants have grown to a harvestable stage, deliveries get
enabled for your subscription. If you have booked a new mini-farm, this happens
around the 4th or 5th week usually, and your first harvests are predominantly
greens - since they grow the fastest amongst various crops. In some cases, if the
mini-farm you subscribed to, had pre-existing crops you did not replace - your
deliveries may start sooner. In case of shared farms, typically your deliveries
start within the next week after signing up.

Based on your location, a day of the week is allocated to you, which is clubbed
with other farmizens in the same area - once your harvests start, you will get
weekly deliveries on that allocated day.

2-3 days before each scheduled delivery, you will receive a notification in the
app asking you to choose between self-harvest or home-delivery. This is
required to avoid situations where you were planning to drop in for a self-
harvest, but our system scheduled a home delivery for you - and hence we need
this confirmation every time.

Let's say your delivery is scheduled every Wednesday. Every Wednesday

morning, the farmers will inspect your mini-farm, and check what is ready for
harvesting. They harvest everything that is ready for harvest at that time and put
them into a basket, then clean it up and put all of it into a bag. Our truck reaches
the farm at about 11 am and picks up all the bags for 30-40 farmizens, and then
starts delivering them one by one. You will get an update in the app when the
truck has left the farm.
Important points to note:
A. This is not on-demand delivery, so the app will not be able to tell you exactly
when your delivery is scheduled - it depends on the traffic conditions in the city.
Most deliveries happen between 12 pm and early evening, Monday to Saturday.

B. Since the harvests are done on a fixed day every week, for a given mini-farm,
it's possible that some of your veggies may get overgrown. This can happen for
veggies like Okra which grow from under-grown to over-grown within 3-4 days. 
In order to minimize this problem, we instruct farmers to harvest vegetables

even if they are slightly smaller, because if we wait for the next week, it may get
overgrown. One way to avoid this is to come to the farm for a self-harvest every
week, in addition to the home delivery - if you choose to grow fast-growing
vegetables like Okra.

C. It is difficult for farmers to take custom harvest requests like - "Send me more
of mint and less of bottle-gourds" - they need to harvest multiple mini-farms
within a couple of hours, and they are trained to harvest everything that is ready
in your mini-farm.

D. When farmers find partially pest affected produce, they still send it across,
instead of discarding it at the farm. This is because many farmizens want to
decide themselves whether they want to consume that vegetable after removing
the affected part, or compost it at their home.

E. The harvesting technique used is slightly different from regular farming. The
idea is aim for consistent and constant harvests, rather than wait and harvest
when all the vegetables are of the optimal size. For example, if you have a bed of
cauliflowers, farmers will start harvesting them from when they are small - so
that you get a couple of small cauliflowers in the first week of harvests, a few
more slightly larger ones in the next week, and so on. This is more suitable than
harvesting 20 cauliflowers when they are large size in the same week.

If you are not at home during the delivery, we will leave the bag at your security
or hang it at your door.  In order to re-use bags, we ask customers to return the
older bag - if you are not at home, you can hang the older bag at your door - and
our delivery executives will collect it. 
Planning Your Mini-farm

You need to plan your crops keeping in mind variety and quantity preferences
based on your individual family. You choose one of the starter plans which are
optimized for a family of 3-4 people, but you can make any changes you want by
clicking on the beds in your plot view. Go to the My Plots section and click on
Manage Plot. Click on any of the beds and you will see a list of crops open up -
you can choose any crop from there.

You will see some crops have green stars - those are crops that will grow better
in current season. You may also see orange stars beside some crops - this
indicates crop rotation recommendations for that bed. In general, it is not a good
idea to keep planting the same thing in the same bed every cycle, since it takes
away the same nutrients from the soil everytime, without giving a chance to the
soil to build back its nutrients. While it's better to choose recommended crops
with stars beside their names, you can experiment with the other crops - most of
them will grow although their sizes may be small or their yield may be low. 

If you are planning your mini-farm crops from scratch, you may want to choose
2-3 beds of greens, 2-3 beds of root vegetables, 2-3 beds of gourds and use the
other beds for other crops. If you have a very small family, and you want to avoid
a situation of excess, you may even choose to keep a couple of beds empty, or
plant long harvest cycle crops in them.

For more variety, you can choose combo beds, which are combinations of 2 or
more crops in the same bed. Please refer to the section on combo beds to
understand their advantages and disadvantages.

When a bed becomes empty after multiple harvests, it will show up as empty in
the app, and you will get a notification as well. You should choose a new crop
from the crop list when you get this notification. 
For shared farms, you do not need to worry about this - farmer does all the
planning for you.
Custom Crops

When you click on any of the beds, you can see a list of crops supported by the
system, where Farmizen supplies the seeds and saplings necessary to the farmer.
You will also see an option called Custom Crop. You can choose this if you want
to plant something outside the list supported in that bed.

You may choose to grow something outside this list - for example, maybe a
vegetable not in the list. Or maybe flowers. Or maybe a crop combination that is
not supported in the system. Or maybe some variety of a fruit plant. You can
choose Custom Crop as an option, bring your own seeds and saplings and plant
them yourself. You can ask the farmer to help prepare the bed for planting, but
you must do the planting yourself. Once planted, farmers will take regular care of
these crops as well - though may not be able to take any plant specific care. You
will not be able to see any updates in the app for custom crops.  

You can plant anything you want - the only restriction being planting large trees
which cannot be easily removed or which will create too much shade for
neighbouring plots. 

We strongly encourage you to use the custom crop functionality - in the past
farmizens have grown staples like potatoes, flowers, medicinal plants, lemons
etc. - it's a lot of fun growing something which no one else in the farm is
growing!

In case of shared farms, if you have access to some interesting seeds, please
drop them with the farmer - if space is available the farmer can grow them,
subject to their judgement - but they will be sharing the produce with everyone !
Combo Beds - Advantages
and Disadvantages

While combo beds (beds which have 2 or more crops in a combo - a list of
supported combos are available in the crop list) have the inherent advantage
that you can grow more variety of produce - there are some disadvantages. They
are as follows:

The app doesn't have an ability to show status of individual crops in a combo
bed. So, if one of the crops is in harvest stage whereas the other crop is still
growing, it will show the entire bed as harvest ready.

Although we make a lot of effort to create combos of crops which work well
together, in certain cases we have seen that growth is better if a crop is
planted on its own, instead of in a combo with another crop.

If one of crops in a combo reaches the end of its harvest cycle, while the other
one is still harvesting, you will not be able to replant half the bed. All
replanting is only on full beds, so you will need to wait till the other crop
harvest cycle is over.
Crop Updates & Empty Beds

Our partner farmers use an app provided by Farmizen which acts as a TODO list
for the farmer. Most of the updates you see about your mini-farm in your app,
appear because the farmer marked a task as completed in the farmer app.

They have tasks related to pest control, watering, fertilizing, staking, planting,
seeding, harvesting etc. Every week, the farmer also has an inspection task for
your mini-farm.

During this plot inspection, he marks the various growth stages for each your
beds - and you receive updates on what's happening with your beds, if there is a
change. If any of your beds has become empty because of harvest cycle being
over or a crop failure, the farmer marks it in the app - and you receive a
notification. 

Since these plot inspections are done weekly, it may be possible that you had a
bed which became empty on, let's say a Wednesday, and the plot inspection was
done on a Saturday. So, between Wednesday to Saturday you will have an empty
bed in your mini-farm, although the app may not show an empty bed !

Moreover, the app only shows status of a bed as Growing, Flowering, Fruiting,
Harvest Ready etc - it does not show the health of the bed - a plant may be
fruiting but may not be in great health - and to maximize yield, it may be better
to replace that crop. This is why coming to the farm once every few weeks, will
help you get a more accurate picture of the status of your crops. We are working
on introducing better ways to capture the health status of the plants, without
additional workload on our partner farmers.
How to Maximize Your Yield

You can maximize your yield by coming to the farm more often and adding your
own tender loving care to the plants in your mini-farm. While farmers take care
of your crops for you, any additional care that you can provide always yields
bonus results. And of course, you can work around any limitations of the app in
communicating the exact health status of your crops.

For example, drop by at the farm and do a round of de-weeding on your plot. Not
only will removing weeds help, it will help loosen the soil as well.

If you compost at home, bring your own compost over, and spread it on your
beds. 

Keep rotating your crops, ideally following the crop rotation recommendation
stars in the app.

Have some dry leaves collected by workers at your complex ? Get a sackful of dry
leaves and put a layer of mulch on your beds.

Spotted some caterpillars eating away your leaves - remove them manually.

And so on ...
Sharing Your Produce

Some of us have smaller families. Some of us just eat lesser quantity of veggies !
So, it's possible that you may end up with an excess of vegetables. While many
farmizens choose to share excess produce with friends, neighbours, colleagues
etc., you also have the option to share excess with other farmizens or charity. You
can find this option in your Account->Delivery Settings. 
We recommend you use this option only after receiving your first few deliveries,
so that you can get a sense of whether the produce is indeed in excess.

When you select the sharing option in the app - farmers use their discretion,
after harvesting, to decide if you have excess of a particular type of veggie, and
put the excess into a sharing basket for farmizens or for charity as the case
maybe.

In case of a shared farm, you do not have this option available - because all the
produce is shared amongst everyone !
Barter Hour

Every Saturday at every Farmizen partner farm - from 4 pm to 5 pm, is barter

hour. Drop in at this time, and if you spot any other farmizen at the farm - you
can assume that (s)he is there for barter as well - so, don't hesitate to walk up to
them and offer to barter what you want !
In case of a shared farm, every Saturday 4 pm to 5 pm is a social hour - where
you can come and meet your fellow subscribers.
Quality of Vegetables

For us, the primary criteria for quality is whether the vegetables are healthy for
consumption. You may be disappointed if you use the same lens of quality that
we have become used to, while evaluating chemically grown produce.

You will find holes in our greens, because our greens are edible for pests, unlike
chemical laden perfect produce you will find in the market - they do not have
have holes because very often, they are not even edible for insects ! You may
even find a worm or two, and you should wash them off - we believe that's far
better than consuming veggies where the worms have been killed with a poison.

Moreover, plants which have fought a pest attack, very often produce phenolic
anti oxidants which are present in the vegetables, and these are very beneficial
to consume. So, consuming imperfect produce with holes in it, is not just OK, but
actually healthier.

You will also find our produce being of non standard sizes - very often they
maybe smaller than usual - this is owing to two reasons - a. as explained in the
harvesting section, our harvesting procedure is geared towards continuous
harvests, rather than trying for a bumper harvest with optimal sizes b. we do not
use fast release chemical fertilizers like NPK or Urea - although using these
would increase the size of the veggies as well speed of growth, they end up
building a high level of nitrates within the vegetables - and these cannot be
washed away ! Nitrates at high concentrations in our food is considered to be a
key factor in many of today's lifestyle diseases.
De-weeding

De-weeding is one of the most time consuming activities at the farm. Most
commercial farms use weedicides like Roundup, which can be harmful to human
health. Since we do not use any herbicides or weedicides, our farmers spend a
lot of time in removing weeds at the farm. Especially during rainy season, weeds
come back within a few days of removal. 

Usually de-weeding activities start from one end of the farm and gradually reach
the other end of the farm. By that time, the weeds would have started coming up
at the other end. 

So, when you visit the farm, you may see weeds in your mini-farm based on
which area of the farm the weeding activities have reached on that day. This is
normal and nothing to get alarmed about.
Crop Failures

Yes, crops in your mini-farm can fail - after all, we are relying on nature to grow
our food ! There is a high likelihood of 1-2 crops failing - but because you end up
growing a number of crops together - you end up diversifying the risk. Just like a
portfolio of investments. In aggregate, you should be fine.

One aspect to take note of is that every farm usually goes through natural  cycles
- there are likely to be high yielding periods and low yielding periods - very
often related to the season.
Sharing Your Login

You may want to share your login with a family member or with your friends. We
don't have support for that in a clean way - but here is  a workaround:

If you have created an account using a email ID, you can share the same email ID
and password with others, and they can all login and use the app from different
phones.

If you have created an account using Facebook Login, you should logout. Then
click on the Login link on top right hand corner of the screen, punch in the email
ID associated with your Facebook account, and click on Reset Password. You will
receive an email which you can click on to set a password. Once this is done, you
can start logging in using the email and passsword, instead of having to do a
Facebook login. You can then share this email and password with anyone else
you want to share the app with.
Miscellaneous Tips

If you face an excess situation, a good way to consume a lot of vegetables is

by juicing your raw veggies - it's a fun and easy to get in your recommended
5-7 servings of veggies and fruits in a day. Heres quickstart guide to juicing
- https://www.rebootwithjoe.com/juicing/

Bored with the same veggies every week ? Check out a bunch of interesting
recipes we collected (many of them from farmizens) - don't forget to try the
amazing lettuce lassi - https://www.farmizen.com/category/healthy-eating/ 

You can store your veggies for longer if you cling-wrap them. Also consider
pickling some of your veggies for longer storage

Share a subscription with a neighbour - or maybe signup for 2-3 plots

between 5-6 neighbours - and then barter amongst yourselves - that way, you
will always have variety, and excess will never be a problem
Group Chat Etiquette

There is a chat group available for each farm, which is available to all farmizens
who have subscriptions in that farm. Please share information in that chat group,
that is useful to everyone - use it to discuss recipes, ideas, share information
about farming/gardening, coordinating farm visits, overall farm level issues etc.

Please avoid discussing plot or subscription specific cases in the group chat - you
should use the support channel for that. Because of the number of such chat
groups, our team looks at these farm level chat groups only intermittently every
few days, so they are likely to miss out if there are any plot specific questions
asked in these groups.

The farm chat group is for farmizens to discuss with each other - it is NOT  a
support forum. The barter chat group which some of you will have access to (if
there are other farmizens nearby), is to enable exchanges of excess produce
between neighbours.

Please avoid anything which may offend other farmizens - if you find such
conversations in the group which you feel are inappropriate, please report those
to [email protected] so we can investigate and block access where
necessary.
Contacting Support

You can contact support using the in-app chat channel. This is not a real-time
chat - it's best if you can provide as much information about your query, so that
when the support team reviews the information, they can resolve your case
faster. 

You can also email us at [email protected] with your

queries/issues/concerns.

Please note that support hours are Monday to Saturday 9 am to 6 pm. We try to
respond back within 1 working day to to your queries.

Some of your queries may need support to interact with farmers on the field, and
that may take an additional 2-3 working days.

Escalation: If you are unhappy with the support received or the time taken to
resolve your case, please escalate to [email protected] and we will look
into that on high priority.
Thank You !
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