Practicing a policy of least intervention in our garden, we almost let everything be. Changes we make are usually minimal, gradual, as our needs call for & there has never been a grand plan or design for our garden. This little wild garden, shaped by all its inhabitants including us, has emerged organically over the years. And once in a while it reveals something to us from its stock of mysteries & surprises.

It was while trying to harvest Ivy gourds from a vine that had climbed up a henna tree, that we found a hive of the red dwarf honey bee. Delighted as we were about Ivy gourds, we were more delighted that the red dwarfs had made our henna tree their home.

A good article about the same.

The first principle of Permaculture as put forward by David Holmgren is Observe & Interact. For a long time I have been puzzled by Observation. I have wondered what does it mean to observe! At bahulavana, I tried capturing details of things that I noticed. I made a list of flora, I found out the physical & chemical profiles of soil, I am making a bird list as well as a list of other fauna. However all these didn’t give me a sense that I was doing observations like many inspiring permaculture gurus who tell stories about how things were, how things changed, and how they participated in the process.