A bite and I’m transported - to nowhere in particular it’s definitely a better place than I was in a second ago. Juice dripping over my hand, seeds falling off my lips and now I know I’m at that sweet spot. The window between my bread going from golden crunch to soggy mush is very small, and so I finish it in a few big bites. Eating around the edges and corners first for that glorious centre bite. There’s still space in my stomach, I could eat more. But that was the only Marinda I had that day, and nothing else I could eat right now would be better than what I’d just eaten in that moment. And so I got up, dreaming about next harvest which is sure to be bigger.

This isn’t my usual writing style, but I’ve just read the chapter “Lust” from Medium Raw by Anthony Bourdain and let’s just say I’m inspired to do some food-porn writing myself. But this doesn’t even feel like an exaggeration, though. This is genuinely how I feel about the Tomatoes I grow, and being able to eat them, having as much fun eating them as I do, is kind of why I started doing it.

During my time at Vrindavan Farm, I saw the Tomatoes grow between Marigolds and other plants, but I had not tasted them yet because they were not ripe. My first Tomatoes from Vrindavan were had during the pandemic while I was holed up in my room. I’d ordered from a Produce Box from the farm which among other things came with Tomatoes - of different shapes, sizes and colours - packed inside a bamboo, no less! Sitting there in my room, popping the Tomatoes in my mouth, having my mind blown and reality shaken, scrambling to save the seeds because I just have to grow this, is how this journey began.

It started small, like all things. A couple of pots on the terrace, seeds from a glass jar labelled “Vrindavan Tomatoes 2021”, and lots of TLC. Tomatoes are not the toughest thing in the world to grow, and chances of you getting some fruit with even a little attention given to these plants are fairly high. You know me, I’m an instant-gratification girl, and a successful first season, followed by another, made me think - hey, how hard can it be?!

In the Summer of 2023, I started working on a plot of land my family owns and bought with the intention of building a Farm-House. I thought the work on the Farm is something I can do while we wait for the work on the House to begin. And so it began with fencing off a 1/2 acre plot on one edge and calling it the Simbiosis Farm. 20 raised beds built, and the first season I only felt confident to plant on 8 of them. A mix of Tomatoes and some companion plants like Basil, Marigold, & Sunflowers.

I can go in depth about what we put into our soil, how we built it from scratch, how “natural farming”, “regenerative agriculture”, “organic” are not words we just throw around, blah - blah - blah. I really could but that’s not what I want to tell you in this piece at all! I want to tell you about the Tomatoes. Period.

So yes, first season - insane harvest! An Indian indigenous heirloom (Kaashi), a variety from Vrindavan & Gaytri’s seed bank (Cherry Rose Pink), and 2 variety I had save from my last trip to Amsterdam (Roma and one I haven’t been able to identify yet so we call her Ams Orange) being the most beautiful ones of the season. But these weren’t quantities I was used to growing. These weren’t quantities I could consume by myself. These were quantities I’d have a lot of even after distributing to friends and family generously. While eventually wanting to sell this produce, make it available for people to order was the plan, suddenly when I had these tomatoes ripening away on my kitchen counter, I froze. Who want’s to buy Tomatoes? You already get Tomatoes in the market. Tomatoes cost Rs. 50 or less in the market. Can I possibly justify selling these at Rs. 50?! NO WAY. What’s the fucking point!?!?!

That’s when my partner - God bless him - calmed me down in the middle of a downward spiral. Start with Whatsapp, he suggested. Make a broadcast list, easy. Tell your friends and aunties and friends from football. And charge how much ever you think is correct. Tell your story. People will be happy to pay when they see and taste how different it is.

And boy did the aunties come through!! Trust thy aunty, I say. My mother and her friends are really the best people. After packing for them the first two weeks I felt confident in talking about it on the gram. And then our small community of less than a thousand people at the time also came the fuck through! What made me happier than the first order (which also made me incredibly happy btw) was those that ordered a second time, then a third, and have slowly become regular patrons. To everyone that has ever ordered from me and my farm, genuinely, thank you for putting your faith in me and us and what we’re trying to do. I deeply appreciate you.

And so that’s basically how we’ve gotten here, at this “There’s something here and I need to figure out how to do more of this, streamline it, make it flow and grow and do as much as I can with it because there really something here. And it’s the most magical thing I’ve poured myself into to date!”

Now let’s get a bit into the finer details about this plant that I’ve taken upon myself to become the champion of. It’s everything I’ve learnt so that if you ever try to grow it, you’ve got more information than I had starting off.

The ideal range of day-time temperature it prefers are about 21 - 27 degrees C, and night-time temperatures of 15 - 20 degrees C - making it perfect for the winter we experience at the farm. Which is not to say that they won’t grow in the summer or monsoon, they absolutely would. I personally will not grow them, and that’s because as the temperatures rise the plants are in visible stress. Keeping them alive takes more effort, more resources, more time. And after all that also we’d end up with fewer, smaller, and not as delicious fruit. And yes, fruit, Tomato is a fruit. Try some from us and you’ll change your views if you disagree.

Companion plants, or plant besties, are plants that grow with complimentary characteristics to what you plant them with. Basil plants, with their strong smell, repel insects that’d otherwise attack Tomatoes. It’s also widely believed that they improve the taste of Tomatoes, and to me they just make sense in a pair. Marigolds attract pollinators which are important for turning flowers to fruit. Leafy Greens like Spinach and Arugula do well in the shade of the tall Tomatoes, in turn keeping the ground cool and acting as live mulch. Garlic and Onions plants also with their strong smell mask the fragrant tomatoes, thereby giving it more of a chance to grow without the fear of discovery by critters and creatures that may otherwise eat it.

“What grows together, goes together” they say. Give me Tomato and Basil and Garlic and some Onions and I’ll give you a bangin’ meal, with a bouquet of Marigolds on our table.

The opposite of plant besties are plants that actually hate each other, or rather, are not good for each other - like you and your ex - therefore should never be planted together. Corn, for example, attracts the same insects as Tomatoes and so increases the susceptibility of disease. Cabbages, Broccoli and other Brassicas are heavy feeders and may consume all the nitrogen available in the soil before your Tomatoes even get a chance - a fight for nutrition that the Tomatoes will definitely lose. Potatoes and Eggplants also belong to the same family as Tomatoes, and therefore will be prone to the same kind of diseases. Say one plant is effected, it won’t be long before that single disease spreads to all. A diverse farm is a robust one. And while the list of arguments against monoculture plantations is long, this is one of the main reasons.

An interesting fact about Tomatoes - and one, I believe, is why we aren’t growing more than we did last year - is that Tomatoes cannot be planted in the same plot for 2 consecutive years. Tomatoes are highly susceptible to fungi and bacteria that live in the soil. If your Tomato had even a tiny bit of Early Blight, Fusarium Wilt, or Bacterial Wilt - all of which are very common in India - those pathogens will stay alive but dormant in the soil and attack new young plants the next season. Root-Knot Nematodes - tiny microscopic worms that love Tomato roots, explode in population if Tomatoes are planted consecutively. Tomatoes are also rather heavy feeders themselves. They mine the soil for Nitrogen, Calcium and Potassium in large quantities. After a season the soil is kind of exhausted, and needs time to recuperate before we subject them to this kind of extraction again. Chances are the next season the plants will be much smaller and fruit a lot less.

That, my friends, is what I blame this season’s low yield on. I’ll stare directly at the sun but never in the mirror.
Season 1 - We planted on 8 beds, out of 20.
Season 2 - We built 13 more beds and planted on a total of 25 beds (12 old + 13 new)
Season 3 - WHERE TF SHOULD I PLANTTTT!?!?! I did have a whole year to plan for this. And so only my speed can be blamed, to be honest. We’ve planted on the 8 beds of season 1. Having given a lot of beds heavy feeding of ze good stuff, planted fewer quantities in some of the beds from last season also.

The results - shocking! Tomato plants dying in the middle of their growth cycle, with no apparent visible reason. Tomatoes growing with plants and fruits that are SO small. Fruits growing a bit warped. Plants giving a lot less yield than I’ve seen them give last year. It’s been bad, to say the least. We’re trying to salvage what we can and also being better with our planning for next season. And therefore I apologise if you’ve been wanting to order but aren’t finding them available regularly.

Another fascinating thing about Tomatoes - they’re total brats! They let you know when they’re not happy, you’ll be able to see it! Catfacing (the name makes no sense) is when the tomato plants grow really weirdly around the bottom end of the fruit, with deep scars and odd bumps. Zippering (totally apt name) is when a thin, brown, necrotic scar running longitudinally down the tomato, often with smaller, transverse lines that resemble a zipper. Cracking is when there’s concentric or radial cracks in your tomatoes. Blossom End Rot is when the bottom end turns sunken, dark, and leathery. Sun-scalding is like a Tomato sunburn - bleached, blistered, or papery areas on the fruit caused by overexposure to direct sun and high heat. All of these are non-pathogenic diseases though, and completely safe to eat around. But you know people and their obsession with “Perfect Produce”. So these are the ones I save for myself - for my family and friends. And also these go into products - like a Slow Cooked Sugo we did one year, and a Tomato Syrup we’re working on this year.

The dream product for me, is just canned Tomatoes. I see cans of “Tomatoes from Puglia” and “Italian Tomatoes” being imported and given the kind of soil we have / can have, the sun, the resources - we could totally make that. It also becomes how I can make sure we’ve got these Tomatoes through the year. There, I’ve put it out into the world. Now I’ll figure out how to make it happen.

We’ve also grown a lot of varieties through the years. I think the highest in a single season was last year - where we grew 18, a personal record! Each flavour blows my mind with how different they are. We grew the Roma - which are fleshy and not juicy. The Marinda - that’s the perfect slicing Tomato. Wild Cherry Tomatoes that are just insane popping tomatoes - I never planted them, they grow naturally on my land! The Sungold - another cherry but intensely sweet! Indigo Apple which, uff, so beautiful. They’re called Indigo Apples cause they’ve got these streaks of Indigo, which comes from the Anthocyanin present in the skin, which is the same stuff that’s in Blueberries which makes these taste so tart! Tigerella that gets its name form the orange and red tiger stripes on it. Green Zebra which is basically the same thing, but green! And these turn yellowish when ripe. Fig Tomatoes, that are tiny like Figs. Kaashi which is an Indian Indigenous variety that is like a tart, tiny beefsteak. Cherry Rose which is such a delicately sweet and juicy variety. Like Ash from Pokemon, I gotta catch ‘em all - or in this case - taste ‘em all!

It’s also a deep learning curve - finding what varieties to grow and studying or tracking their different growth cycles. Some never even germinate, some do and then die off, some have a very small yield, and some surprise you beyond measure! I think the balance lies in figuring out which varieties I grow to sell and which varieties I grow entirely for myself. And you can never really know everything about anything, especially something you love. This season one variety of Tomatoes is giving me the most absurd fruits! Deliciously sweet but absurd! It’s like many flowers fused into one, and one growing bigger than the others.

I feel like it’s only apt that my first email to you all this year is about Tomatoes. It’s something I promised to do a while ago in a previous Substack post. Better late than never? We’ve also got a Tomato Tasting event happening later this week that I’m so excited about! While this one is sold out, do let me know if that sounds like something you’d be interested in also? Depending on how this one goes (praying it goes well) I’d love to try and organise another!

2024 was a great year for me writing here. 2025 not so much. But writing more, more in the form of deep dives into select topics under the larger umbrella of food and farming - vs these personal musings I’ve made a habit of doing here - is something I want to make a point to do in 2026. You can expect this on the 2nd Monday of every month for the next few months - small starts & doable commitments. Can she do it? We’ll have to wait and seeee!

PS : The first person to correctly count the number of times I’ve written Tomato(es) in this whole piece, will get a free box of - you guessed it - Tomatoes!! Bombay only, ofc.
PSS : Don’t use chatGPT c’mon. No one likes a cheater.

Between the random chats and shits and giggles, we reached one particular topic — life and our individual purposes. Ayushi was in the midst of a job switch then and works in the Environmental Policy space. Akshit used to work in the Netherlands and now works in Real Estate in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region, a.k.a. Thane. And I have, for the last few years, been walking the tightrope between a family business of exports and a personal pursuit of a life in agriculture. We reached a point where we all decided to recite our “Mission Statement” out loud for the others to hear, which made us think of the most concise explanation of our personal purpose — defining what we do or want to do, and why it exists.

It’s my Substack, so I won’t go into their Mission Statements, but this was mine: “I want to live as close to the land as possible & grow food & figure out ways of adding value at source in a way that’s exciting that also sustains my life and living.” I’m putting this up here because you — the lovely people who signed up for this email — should know what this is all about. It’s a personal goal of mine: living far from the city, working and learning about the natural world and everything within it, growing delicious produce, and figuring out ways to add value at the farm level. That’s kind of it, really.

I felt like going down this particular thought train for this ever-so-unexpected, yet hopefully called-for update you get when this notification pops up in your email... or your spam, on this lovely Diwali holiday (I hope you’re not working — please don’t work today, ffs). Why, you may ask? Well, writing this really helps me put my thoughts in order too. And as we begin our new season, I thought it’s a good time to tell you what I’ve been up to the last few months.

So, the monsoon, as you know, is completely off-season for me. Just before moving, however, we did a lot of monsoon planting — over a hundred trees: fruiting, flowering, towering ones for shade and landscaping all across the land. This felt like the last thing I needed to do before saying “C u l8r” to the farm. Last season, and the many attempts at growing in the monsoon, doing the drive back drenched and shivering, and still having all the plants I tried growing drown, taught me to use this time to rest and reset instead. And that’s exactly what I did!

I moved to Bangalore as well, for about three and a half months or so. The purpose was to take some time away, work remotely on office things, but really spend time pursuing the things I wanted to do with this time off. In Bombay, sometimes, I feel too stretched thin. There’s always something happening — a new place to try out, a friend to meet, some family commitment — and while those I am incredibly grateful to have and love that that’s a constant, some time off was what I was craving.

In my first week there, I got an email saying I’d scored a scholarship from the Market Gardeners Institute — one that I was sure I wouldn’t get, given how small the scale of my operation was, and also knowing how few there were to go around. Note to self then and there: take all the shots — shots in the dark, shots in the light — all of them. I spent the last three months studying, learning, and taking full advantage of this course and the toolkits it comes with.

Soap-making is another skill I was desperate to learn. Having seen Shruti of Dirty Hands at Work and all the natural soaps she creates, plus learning from her in a one-off session, I was so curious to learn more about this. The aim behind this, as well, is to make soaps using the stuff we grow. Did you know we grow fuck loads of sponge gourd?! Now imagine that in a loofah/soap situation.

Boom! Billions!

HAH, she kids, take it easy. I’m not living in a fantasy world, and the aim isn’t billions either (though that’d be nice). The aim is to find ways to take what we grow and turn it into something beautiful. And that’s what soap-making can do. Turmeric and its many anti-inflammatory properties in a soap, coffee grounds as a scrub — heck, tomatoes! Have you ever smelt tomato leaves? My life will be a very happy one if I learn how to smell like tomato leaves, I’ll tell you that.

It’s also a very beautiful and intricate art form, and I’ve spent the last few months learning the theory, making trial formulations using only the good stuff like coconut oil, sweet almond oil, hemp oil, cocoa butter, shea butter, and so many more. The theory ranges from learning the fatty acid profiles of all these oils, to the colours imparted by charcoal, turmeric, clay, and other natural ingredients. We’ve even been deep-diving into fragrances and top, middle, and base notes of different scents. It’s a fascinating world and one that I’ve enjoyed learning so much about. Now, it’s time to practice. And soon — hopefully before the year ends — we’ll have our first soaps available to order!

I’ve been working on a couple of furniture pieces too, and wanted to be baking better as well — and also did a couple of bake sales while in BLR. I may have also cracked the recipe for the most perfect Brown Butter Choco Chip Cookie, a personal endeavour I’m very proud of. She’s crisp on the outside, gooey in the middle, is just sweet enough and totally smashable while not being overly moreish. She really is perfection.

Also spent a few Cubbon mornings and almost a month of this time in BLR at Kerehaklu, a special place indeed. Overall, just really feeling myself — and working towards the life I’d like to build.

Your girl also landed her first consultation gig and is now back in Bombay, working on my farm and on another — more about that later! Does she know enough to be consulting on another farm? Well, we’re about to find out! I think of it as just doing what I’ve been doing at my farm but at another place too. The approach is to observe, learn, take in the new context and conditions, and come up with a plan to build them a fantastic and productive farm! And it helps that they’ve already got a strong base and a big team to do this with. It’s incredibly exciting, and I finally feel ready to start a team.

Know anyone who’s keen and curious about the natural world and wants to do more in it? A design degree wouldn’t hurt either! I’m looking for someone to help with design, sourcing, and execution of the things we do at the farm, as well as some other landscape design projects I’m not taking up just yet because I already have a lot on my plate. Someone who wants to work on these things with me will help take things up a notch! Sounds interesting to you, or something you think someone you know will be keen on? Write to meeee! I’m at simran.simbiosis@gmail.com. For real though, I am genuinely keen and on the lookout.

Can we also take a second to acknowledge how fucked this monsoon has been? It’s been raining since May. It rained yesterday, on Diwali. In October. That is crazy talk! If someone tells you they don’t believe in climate change, I really do think that’s reason enough to cut all ties with them. I keep thinking about how messed up it’s going to be for the generations to come and what kind of world we’ll be leaving behind. The world is deeply broken — by us and the systems we’ve created. The bursting of bombs in Gaza in the name of war and justice, and of crackers in Bombay in the name of celebration, aren’t helping us get out of the hole we’ve dug ourselves into either. Every time I hear a sudden burst of a cracker, I can only be grateful that the sound isn’t an imminent threat to my life and the lives of those I love. This Diwali, I prayed for peace and strength, in whatever form they may manifest. I wish that everything you wished for this Diwali comes true too.

Tangeled up in a world of snafu, all I think I can do is hold on for dear life to Love — Love for the people you choose to spend time with, Love for the things you choose to do with your time. And so I hold on with everything I’ve got, to my Mission Statement: “I want to live as close to the land as possible & grow food & figure out ways of adding value at source in a way that’s exciting that also sustains my life and living.”

I don’t particularly see myself as a deeply productive person. If I could, God knows I’d just chill, chill, just chill. I’d watch TV until my eyes tire, read books until I fall asleep, loaf around, play football, and spend my days doing lots of sweet nothing. But there’s something about the seasons, that either propels me into action or stops me in my tracks.

It also makes sense that I’m writing this on the day of the first rainfall here in Bombay. The seasons truly influence what I do. So let’s start with the monsoon. The rains on the land—ooof, it’s beautiful. It pours down really hard, and I don’t plant much [lesson learned from Monsoon ‘24]. It’s the most perfect time to spend sipping hot chai in the shade and smashing a piping hot vada pav or two. We’re also at about 700 meters above sea level, overlooking the Pawna Dam, so the weather and views are absolutely stunning at this time of the year.

Come August/September, as the rains start to say their final goodbyes for the year, that’s when the land truly pulls me in. It invites me to see how happy the monsoon has left it, to pick up handfuls of soil and see what’s going on inside, to spot wild edibles, identify wild fungi, and see how many wild cherry tomatoes have sprouted. To admire—and quickly weed out—all the seeds that may have sprouted from our compost in the rain, and to dream big for the season ahead.

It’s also the best time to transplant. Light, receding showers create the microclimate so favourable for young, fragile plants. They make the move from the Bombay terrace to the Lonavala farm fairly easy for the saplings. We plant throughout September, October, and November. In December, we prune and give them TLC. And by January, almost as soon as the new year begins, our harvest is upon us.

This season, we’ve grown more than ever before. It was a lot of work—and a lot of joy. We grew 15 varieties of Tomatoes, a personal record. Some varieties we aim to grow more of, and others just for home. Maybe I should write about each variety someday—I will. But the most amazing thing about this season is that, along with the Tomatoes, we expanded into so much more! I tried my hand at root vegetables for the first time: Carrots, Beetroots, Radishes, Turnips, Onions, and Garlic — all incredible in shape and flavour, each piquing my curiosity. We’ll be growing even more in the seasons to come, that’s for sure.

We also grew and sold the salad greens we farmed—mainly Arugula (Rocket), but also Basil, Mint, Lettuce, Mizuna, and Mustard leaves. We packaged them in our "Salad from the Source" boxes, sometimes partnering with our favourite cheesemakers, Käse, and occasionally sourcing the sweetest strawberries from Anil ji in Mahabaleshwar.

On the product development front, this season had everything, but we also didn’t spread ourselves too thin. Some fun collaborations, some solo explorations. We started with our Tomato Gochujang, in partnership with Chef Aditi Keni. What was special about this was the tomato pulp from a tomato oil we made last year, fermenting for about nine months. We also made a Gochujang sourdough with Kavita Shah of Kasha Breads—probably my favourite thing from the season. We crafted a Romato ketchup—slow-cooked Roma tomatoes into a delicious, not-too-sweet ketchup with Pranshu of A Soul With A Sole - all Tomatoes, no nonsense. And for the first time ever, I felt confident enough to put something I made by myself up for sale: our Wild Cherry Tomato Confit, slow-cooked in Olive Oil and seasoned with Thyme, Basil, and Garlic which was divine, if I do say so myself! We also cooked up or rather, cooked down an incredible Tomato cocktail syrup with Chef Arina Suchde that we plan to make more of next season, along with other experiments still under R&D.

This season was also the season to put myself out there. It was the first time I participated in pop-ups, taking our produce directly to the people! The first was Comini’s open day. For those unfamiliar, Comini is an alternate micro-school where kids learn through philosophies and practices that differ from mainstream, conventional schooling like the one I’ve had. This event was about teaching the kids the basics of entrepreneurship, of sales, marketing, speaking with people, creating a product, and I kid you not when I say that every single one of those little tots made more sales than me. A pleasure to just witness and a wonderful way to spend a Sunday morning.

The second was in Thane, my best friend Akshit’s Pickleball Court + Cafe opening. Here is what actually blew my mind - sooo many of you came to meet me and buy produce from us! We dressed the stall up real cute and had our tomato varieties at their peak. A whole day that began with a Pickleball tournament in the morning (we made it to the semis, which really isn’t a flex), a meal at the café and a coffee to refuel, and then 4 PM onwards it was a really lovely pop-up with some fun brands and interesting people. Also, we’ve got people who enjoy our produce so far from home? Goes to show that community can really be found anywhere! Go down the rabbit holes you love and you’ll find other people going down rabbit holes of their own, and at the intersections of these is where there is an opportunity to make new friends with already existing shared interests.

This season we also supplied our tomatoes to some restaurants and bakeries that I love. The first was The Good Butter, where our Roselle made it to their beautiful bakes. It’s also a place where I’ve worked and learned almost 2 years ago and so this one was special. The Tomatoes made it to Ground Up, Pune - for their Queso and Miso weekend as well as their Taco nights, Toast Pasta Bar for a Tomato Salad that looked absolutely insane, Slink and Bardot for the last few weeks of our season, and a cheeky lil appearance and Chef Renjie’s birthday celebrations.

The last, but most definitely not the least, is the “At Home” session I recently hosted at and alongside the amazing team at Port at G5A. This one wasn’t with the intention of selling food, but aimed at teaching people the basics of growing their own food. Maya, Ishan and the entire team at G5A were such a delight to work with, and they really let me take this in whichever direction I wanted. To me, gardening, farming, and growing your own food, always begins with the soil. Soil that is nutritious, full of life, and alive! The only way I have sworn by ever since I’ve been on this journey, is to feed the pots / the beds / the fields the good stuff. What is the good stuff you may ask? Well, it’s compost! And to have a platform to finally speak about composting, showing everyone my composters, teaching people the basics, watching them smell, touch, use our homegrown compost in their pots, and then transplant something into it, was the best way to close our season. Team Port also accompanied the session with some banging small plates and cocktails, using all the produce we had. The gorgeous rosella jam and brie toast deserves a special mention.

All in all, a second season I’m so proud of.

Coming back to the point of this - the seasons. Well, all this I’ve mentioned to you has happened between Jan and April. It’s cool outside, it’s fun to spend time on the land, produce stays fresh longer, all the Greens show off with their size, flavour and foliage and the Tomatoes, oof! I won’t say anything except that you’ve got to taste it to believe it.

This beautiful and bountiful winter is followed by a sweltering summer. And come April I begin not looking forward to the visits to the land. They only motivation is not letting the last fruits of the season go bad. And planning for the season to come. The plants on the land and I are all getting cooked in the mid-summer heat. Harsh sunlight and high temperatures make me wonder why this is something I want to do. My motivation dwindles and all gusto is gone. Visits to the land become more infrequent and I keep telling myself that maybe the summer is the time to rest indoors. Take afternoon naps. Hibernate.

With the season on the land coming to a slow end, I also find myself incredibly lost in the summers. What do I do with my time? What do I plan for? What do I post about? Are there any stories to tell? What is the purpose of life? Can I take a break? Do I deserve it? Did I do my most over the season? Where can we improve in the next? Why is winter season so far away? What can I do right now!! Questions I don’t have the answer to. Questions I need to learn to ponder over and not panic about. Questions I need to sit with.

This summer brought with it a new question - Are we going to war?! Another question I don’t have the answer to but hoped and prayed that this country and it’s leaders see sense in de-escalating the current situation we are in and use diplomacy and alternate ways of responding instead of chest-thumping, dick-swinging, war-mongering reactions. I pray that tensions ease, that civilians on our end and theirs aren’t caught in this crossfire, and that everyone is safe. And I’m so relieved that a ceasefire has been announced. I hope you and everyone you love is safe.

Within me it feels tumultuous enough already. And that’s the peace I’m working on finding for myself. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs puts Safety & Physiological needs at the very base, and without those the larger quest of striving to be the best version of yourself don’t even begin. I’m grateful I’m safe, that all the people I love are too. Love and Belonging, Esteem, and Self-Actualisation and the things that are consistently a work in progress, and I’m grateful that these are the questions I get to spend the foreseeable future answering.

In July 2024, I started writing this newsletter. I was desperately craving connection and felt the need to express my thoughts in more words than an Instagram caption allows—something more regular, something to commit to. It’s kind of ridiculous that we (read: I) look to the virtual world to fill a gap missing in the real one, but that’s how it all began. With the exception of November (because I didn’t have any updates to share that month), I’ve been in your inbox on the first Monday of every month since July. I like to think we’ve got something going here.

2024 was the year Simbiosis finally started selling produce! This is a bigger deal for me than you can ever imagine. When I first started growing food in 2020, I never thought I’d be doing—or even trying to do—this professionally. Like, holy shit, when did that happen?! While I’m still not doing it full-time and am very much a weekend farmer, there is growth, direction, and positive reinforcement coming from places I couldn’t have imagined. It feels like this is only the beginning, and there are so many layers of this onion to peel. We’re just getting started.

2024 was also the year of collaborations. I’ve met and worked with some of the most amazing people—people I had only admired from afar until now. Chef Aditi Keni, Chef Dhvani Doshi, and Chef Anurita Ghoshal are all insanely talented women whose work I’ve always looked up to, and now they’ve worked with our tomatoes in some capacity or another. That absolutely blows my mind! These collaborations have also taught me so much—synergizing, scheming with like-minded people, negotiating, marketing...so much!

The learning curve during the first quarter of 2024 was intense, and everything since has been about taking action to ensure this season is even better. For example, last season, I didn’t know how much I could grow, so we cultivated just eight beds. This season, we’re growing on at least three times as many! Last season, I wasn’t sure if people would want to buy, eat, or even buy again anything I grew. But this season, I know there are people who deeply care about the produce they buy, what they put into their bodies, and staying connected to their food. It feels so good to grow knowing there’s a market for this.

Last season, I was selling through the DMs. This season, we’ve got a swanky website with a payment gateway that automatically collects information in the easiest, most sophisticated way. Simmy from the (tech) block?!

In all honestly though, none of this happens without our people, does it? The ones who carve out time for us in their busy lives when we need it most, let us lean on them when we’re too drained to stand on our own, give us that much-needed push (or kick) when we’re hopelessly stuck, or simply offer a hug when nothing else seems to make sense. Our families, both given and chosen—the ones who turn awful days into okay ones, okay days into good ones, and good days into absolutely incredible ones. You know who you are, and you know I’ll love you forever.

Season 2 harvests have begun, and while we’ve only had the wild cherry tomatoes so far, the next few months hold a lot of promise. Lots of dreams and schemes we’ve been working on that we hope come to literal fruition - stay tuned my friends!

2024 was a lot, and 2025 already promises to be more. But life never throws anything your way that you can’t handle or something like that, right?

This is meant to be a monthly update of the happenings at the farm, and quite honestly, I wasn’t sure what to write to you about. I felt like you all are quite updated already. A lot needed to be done before I had more to share with you, and the last two months have been just that—a lot of doing! So I feel good as I write this month’s newsletter to you!

All year, I’ve tried to grow food that is in season, but I’ve had little to no success. The summer was too harsh, and the monsoon was far too heavy. So after our tomato season, we’ve tried and mostly failed at a lot, but most importantly, we’ve learned a lot. With this winter, I’ll have officially completed a whole year of working on my farm—growing on it, being rewarded by it, surrendering to it, and finding peace and joy on it.

Through the rough summer and monsoon, I’ve also really begun appreciating the winter for how gentle it is. The winter—wow, the winter. It’s something else here. Temperatures started falling on the land almost as soon as the monsoon slowly weaned away. We started planting at the end of August and are now almost past the halfway mark of planting for the season. Some quick growers will be sown again as we harvest them to maximise the kindness of the season. And some, we wait for, tend to, love, and care for in hopes of a bountiful harvest.

Here’s how our raised bed plans have changed since you last saw them: we built 13 more beds to add to our existing 20 this summer, and this season the aim is to grow in them all!

With new beds, we’ve also had to revise our irrigation plans. Now we don’t just grow in the beds, but have been growing all around out 1/2 acre plot! Bigger fruit trees, flowering bushes and other perennials around the boundary, and along the entrance, and all of seasonal veg in the beds.

The plan for the season is really quite simple - double down on the plants we know did well last season, plant a lot of other produce I have been wanting to grow, and have a whole lot of fun while doing it!

Now what are we planting, you may ask? Here’s my most updated planting plan! What's mad is that as soon as the heavy rains were over, everything we’ve planted has done really well. Some erratic receding monsoon showers through September and October allowed our recent transplants to acclimatise wonderfully. And now everything we plant is enjoying this beautiful pleasant climate.

Some produce like the Roselle, some basil, some bok choy even, has already been ripening. Here’s some updates about the same -

Bok Choy - my first time growing this leafy veg, and I underestimated how quick it grows! 45 days exactly!! The first round of the Bok Choy ripened pretty quickly, and I wasn’t quick enough to get to it. When even a bit over, the Bok Choy turns hard and fibrous, and isn’t ideal to eat. So I harvested some just for me, and I’m letting the others grow a more to go to seed. Now that I’ve learnt how quick it can grow, we’ve done another round of sowing, and should be available within a month or so!

Roselle - Ooooof!! I love love love this plant. Easy to grow, hardy, not too demanding, and SO YUM! This one we’ve definitely got to scale. Grown on a single bed this season, these plants have done amazingly well along with the basil they were companion planted with. I’ve got some fun ideas of what we can do with this and I’m on it - should be the first thing available this season!

Where are the tomatoes, is a question I get a lot! Well, some are already flowering, some with tiny green fruit, so the answer is not too far!

Currently Reading -

In Search of the Perfect Peach - Franco Fubini
All fellow food nerds, get this book! It’s written by the founder of Natoora, a grocery store from the UK, that aims at sourcing flavour - first produce. In this book, Franco Fubini is making a case for flavour being the biggest driver of nutrition, and produce that’s delicious by itself is most likely to be grown with utmost care for the planet and soil. Really enlightening and interesting read!

The Defining Decade - Meg Jay
Slowing inching close to the last year of my 20s, I figured now is the only time to read this one! In this book, Meg Jay, a clinical psychologist, explains how the decade between your 20s and 30s is the most defining period of your life. Crazy to think that in another year, I’ll join the 30s club.

Currently Eating -

Lots of experiments from the produce we’ve grown!

That’s all the updates I have to give, for now! But we’ll keep you’ll posted as soon as something is available on our stories & through our broadcast list. If you’d like to get on it let me know, and I’ll add you!

Today, on the 4th of October 2024, Simbiosis turns 4!!!

Been at this 4 years, damn! Four years ago I made an Instagram page, and thought maybe talking about what I’m growing in my terrace garden might be something people would want to hear about. On this day four years ago I decided to call myself “a grower and a shower” and was cackling to myself as I typed out that bio, but also wondering whether phallic jokes would be well received on a page about growing your food - safe to say they are!

I don’t know if many of you know that this initially began for me as a pandemic chore, one of those that we were all assigned during that time. One of the big ones on my list was to water the plants, at home and on the terrace because our gardener, Lal ji, couldn’t get to us. Devoid of the noise that generally plagues our everyday lives, and without the million things distracting us from any task at hand, I was able to focus on watering these plants and just sitting with them, really. I noticed them get sad at me and wilt when one day I forgot to water them, and perk up in joy not long after I did. I noticed a Chilli flower bud and bloom and then slowly turn into a lil Chilli. I noticed a Chikoo plant and a Mango plant bear fruit—plants I didn’t even know we had on our terrace! I also watered every houseplant at home, though those weren’t nearly as interesting to me as the ones that gave me something to eat.

I then decided to grow some of my own—just tomatoes and spinach to begin with. I used random seeds from somewhere and silly paper cups to start them in. Ron Finley’s masterclass was a great introduction to gardening, and what a guy he is. “Gardening is gangster,” he says, and I still agree. Being responsible for your own food, in some capacity atleast, is the biggest way to stick it to the man.

After that, I saw an interview Gaytri gave on an Insta-live session among some other badass women. Hearing her speak about her life and her farm, stalking Vrindavan and seeing the beautiful world she and her amazing team worked in harmony with, and trying some of those delicious Vrindavan Farm Rajapuris made me write to her, desperately (hopefully not too desperately) asking if I could come work there.

What started out as a dreary chore quickly catapulted into my deepest source of satisfaction. It was genuinely the first thing I ever felt connected to and wanted to know more about, and still continue to.

That’s the backstory, but there is a point I’m trying to make by mentioning it right now, I promise.

So, the first thing I ever posted about was Microgreens. It felt like something that could be a beginner’s first step towards growing. I even had silly illustrations to explain them - look:

These were the first things I ever posted about and showed how to grow, how to eat, and why to grow, etc. Well, four years later, it’s come to my notice that it obviously isn’t as simple as I thought it would be, and showing just isn’t enough. Maybe if I created something to help you grow your Microgreens, something to simplify the process to the bare minimum, maybe then there’s a chance we can all be growing our own Microgreens and enjoying them from our own little gardens. And that’s what I want to talk about in this email. It’s to introduce you guys, you guys first, to our Grow It Yourself Microgreen Mats!!

It’s our first product, designed to make growing Microgreens super easy! All you need to do is open the envelope they come in and set your mat on a plate, pot, or wherever you’d like. There’s a cover that comes with it too, which you’ll need to assemble. The idea here is that seeds need darkness to germinate. So we keep them covered for the first 3–4 days while watering every day. On the 4th or 5th day, when you see your seeds bursting from their mats, you open them to the sunlight and slowly watch the magic happen. By day 7, they’re ready to eat! They can be consumed little by little over the week or all at once, as you like!

While a fair bit of designing, redesigning, trial and error, corrections, experiments have been done to bring it here, something you should know about me is also that I work extremely slowly. So now that I’m finally happy with it, I don’t want to wait any longer, and put these out for you all to use! Super open to any constructive feedback, and ways to improve this once you guys give it a go as well. I know I grow my Microgreens very easily because of them, so have the people I have given them to for them to try, and so now it’s time to really put it to the test.

I’m still just trying to figure my payment gateway / licenses etc while working on the website, which should be up within a week *let’s pray*.

But on this special day, while I celebrate being at this for 4 years, I wanted to share this with you all! And that is kind of all this email is going to be about, we’ll be back to regular programming from next month with a lot of updates to give from the land!

I’m afraid I don’t know what I’m doing, and afraid I’m not doing what I do know well enough. Afraid of boredom, and afraid of change. Afraid of being a woman in this country, afraid for all the women of the country, afraid of the people in charge, and afraid it may always be the same. Afraid of this world, of its hostility, its wars and its changing climate, and afraid of not experiencing all its wonders either, what a shame that’d be.

Afraid of the things I love too - afraid Love may not be all I imagine it to be, that it’ll never live up to the expectations, and afraid to settle for less. Afraid of being stung by nettle, or even by a bee. Afraid of too much rain, but it’d be even more afraid if there had been too little. Afraid of hurting myself on the football pitch, or on the badminton court, or falling over during a headstand at yoga class. Afraid of the coming season, afraid I might fail. Afraid of living with snakes, and afraid the rats will eat all my produce without them.

The opposite - I’d like to think - is action. And knowledge. Learning more about the things you’re afraid of so they aren’t so scary anymore? And doing more of the things you’re scared of, slowly taking away its power. It does seem like the only solution here because curiosity. Must. Beat. Anxiety.

It was this silly thought train that made me go to Mussoorie earlier this August, for the Wilderness First Responder course at Hanifl Centre. I want to learn how to take care of myself, incase something goes wrong. Post this 8 day course, I have learnt - more than anything else - just how many things can go wrong! How have I spend 28 years of my life without a First Aid Kit on me, at all times?! Our bodies, as amazing as they are, are also incredibly fragile. Did you know it takes as little as 1 ml of water per kilo of your body weight to drown you? i.e. if you weigh 60 kgs, all it takes is 60 ml of water to drown you. That’s a quarter of a cup! Or that the average human body has only about 5 - 6 litres of blood and losing even 1 litre means BIG danger? While the body is wonderful and complex there is a tiny optimal range within which it operates best, and even slight changes to that can set off a range of problems. It was fun to learn about all the things to do in each scenario but God I pray I never need to use this.

I’d also like to host people at the farm, kids especially, run camps or some thing, some day. And no knowledge ever went to waste, did it? Plus this is a proper life skill I wish I’d learnt earlier, and will come in use in some capacity or the other, I have no doubt in my mind. So yes, your girl is a Wilderness First Responder now!

As serious as a topic this was, what a pleasure it was to learn this at the Hanifl Centre - the outdoor education school of the Woodstock school. An amazing place, with kind and knowledgable faculty, a beautiful campus, and lovely people to learn among! Outdoor guides, climbers and mountaineers, naturalists, teachers of Woodstock school, doctors and nurses looking to up-skill, and a girl that’s afraid of snakes and wants to be a farmer. An incredible few days! Being among a bunch of like-minded people - waking up early to go birding, trekking up Jaberkhat Nature Reserve, stopping and ooh-ing and aah-ing at ever fungi we spotted, and running away from many a Philoliche - Long-Tongued Horse-Flies that were feasting on the blooming Roscoea - wild Ginger plants, that are monsoon ephemerals.

A few days this past month were also spent in Goa, to celebrate my little sister’s birthday. Goa was as Goa always is - beautiful and delicious. Adding some of my fave spots from this trip to the August recco list!

The farm My farm is what this newsletter is supposed to be mainly about and so I apologise that there isn’t much to update on that front this month. Just after telling you guys what a proper Sunday farmer I had become, I didn’t go a single time after the first Sunday of this month. It’s been pouring down on us hard this monsoon! With the heavy rains have come some extremely strong winds, that have destroyed everything that in their path. While the larger trees we planted around the boundary seemed okay, a lot of the plants in the beds, and all the papaya trees between the beds, all the trellises we built, are all doing terribly. My heart sank the last time I was there and so I decided instead of going every weekend while the rains are peaking, and feeling overwhelmed by their intensity, I might as well take a step back, and begin again once the monsoon is over.

With a large part of the summer building and monsoon transplanting done, I figured now is the time to take a break. In a next few weeks it’s going to be go-time once more, and there will be no stopping. So I might as well take that break now, focus on what I can control, and surrender to what I cannot. It also ended up being a great time to focus on some projects that had taken a back seat for some time now, SO much more on those soon eeeep!!

There’s big dreams for the coming season, and it’s been nice to put them down - chalk out expected timelines, get our seed bank ready, narrow down our planting plans. I’m going to do everything I can, with the help of Baban on the land and Lal on the terrace nursery, to the best our collective abilities, with the knowledge we have from the past year on the land. While failing is a very real possibility, so many things out of our control, I will keep at it, keep learning, keep adapting, and keep growing, year on year. Because we. Must. Always. Kick. Fear’s. Ass.

At the end of the monsoon in 2022, while I was just getting a hang of being a terrace gardener, I remember planting a bunch of trees on the land. I am not entirely sure what the logic behind the timing was, and in hindsight, there probably wasn’t any.

It does feel like common sense, though, does it not? To do your planting in the early days of the monsoon, so the young plants will have a steady supply of water, so that they will enjoy lower temperatures instead of scorching heat, and so that they’ll have an easier first few months to acclimatise comfortably to their new homes. We planted a lot of native varieties along the boundary - Palash (Flame of the Forest), Jarul (Crepe Myrtles), Gulmohars, some coconuts that had sprouted on my terrace, Bahava (Golden Shower Tree), and some Champa, that were overgrowing their pots, and lots of Bougainvillea (idk why either). Given the mindless timing of it, it is no surprise that almost everything died - either by thirst or became lunch for the cows that roam the land from time to time.

In the monsoon of 2023, I was in Pune doing a 3 month internship at The Good Butter. A beautiful and immersive few months with an extremely large learning curve, but I didn’t get the chance to plant last year again. The little time I did have on the land was spent building the raised beds and working on the soil in them, for tomato szn ofcourse! 

This year, however, I’m trying to use the lessons from the past failures, and be a bit smarter with our work on the land. Since the start of the year, I have been a proper Sunday farmer. Every week is spent looking forward to Sundays and every Sunday is spent on the land sowing, planting, transplanting, harvesting, planning, building, and most importantly, learning. Weekends when I get a Saturday there too are a bonus, but Sundays are non-negotiable. And so, with trips to the land a part of routine now, I’ve been transplanting our bigger trees from the onset of the monsoon this time, and it’s been wonderful!!

I started sowing seeds of big trees last year and so far we have loads of Avocados, Mahua, Moringa, Mango, & Papaya adolescents - all practically bursting out of their pots, with roots begging for more space to spread at leisure. I hear you, ya silly! Slowly, about 8-10 plants a week, they’re all being moved to their new homes. I guess watering them after the monsoon is going to have to be figured out, but that’s a problem for another day.

I say this often - when it rains outside, I feel the bakes inside. But for the most part of last month I had lost my home and kitchen to repairs and maintenance. I finally got it back just last week and the only bake I’ve got the chance to make was this Cherry Pie. Sooooo good! Here’s some links for the recipe if anyone is curious - Pie Crust Cherry Pie

This email feels a bit plain to me, but I am feeling a bit stuck. Or maybe just too comfortable in a place I know I don’t want to be in? Life doesn’t seem to move as fast as I’d like for it to, my plants don’t seem to grow as fast as I wish they would, the winter (big growing szn) seems so far away, the Papaya trees take too long to bear fruit. But even slow growth is growth, and all good things take time Simran, I repeat to myself daily, like a prayer.

Movement helps, for sure. More than I ever gave it credit for. I am finding myself more grateful than ever - for the ability to run, jump and play, and for the friends made and communities built through the shared love for a sport. Premier League season is around the corner too, and this one is ours, Gunners. It’s got to be!

Travel helps best, I believe. And so I wonder why I ever allow myself to go on for months without it?! While I have stayed put in one place these last couple of months, the rest of the year has a lot of it on the cards and she is keeeeen!!

Where did the last 6 months go?

To be honest, I don’t have a fucking clue. For about 10 weeks at some point this year, I was drowning in tomatoes. The most fun I’ve ever had! Never before had I felt like I had put my mind to something as hard as I did with our season. And yes, it’s been a long time coming - over 4 years, if you can believe it. For 10 weeks, we did a steady delivery of our tomato tasting box, to you all, the wonderful people of Bombay. And never before have I felt as tired as I did when the season was over, and boy, was that a good feeling.

For about 2 weeks last month, I worked on the Six Hands Supper Club with Dhvani @tinygoesaroundtheworld and Anushka @threeonefarms, and that was another massive learning curve for me personally! A big life lesson for me is going to be that in big gatherings, a large family-style dessert is the way to go. A cold one that can be chilled in the fridge the morning of is even better.

That’s a total of 12 weeks, for the other 12, I have been mostly just sleeping too much, barely work out, been loading up on good bread and great desserts, learned that my blood work is nonsense, been sitting on some half-baked ideas and projects that I haven’t seen through. I guess it’s safe to say I haven’t been showing up for myself like I’d like to. And until June I was barely doing anything to fix it. Happy to report that I’m slowly finding some rhythm again, and I’m on my way to being who I’d like to be every single day. Yes, horizontal days still happen, but I think that’s okay. Life is, after all, transient.

Now, about purpose. The reason for writing this is mostly selfish. Instagram, as wonderful and useful as it is, is exhausting in the way that it’s too loud, too crowded, everyone is doing better and more amazing things than me, and there is no rest. Rest is, infact, punished. Information, knowledge, creativity, and sheer brilliance are reduced to bite-sized 'content'. While there is no doubt so much brilliance in being able to do that authentically, and the attempts to do that never stop, I also want to do something slower and more intentional.

Now I do know this - the world doesn’t need more news letters, podcasts, QR code menus, or Whatsapp groups. But I’m going to send you this one anyway. I want to write more. Committing to writing this news letter every month is a way to make sure I do. An email every month for the rest of the year. To all of you, who have kindly agreed to receive this email. I guess the idea here, as with most genuine social agreements, is to honour it and gain accountability in the process. I want to be accountable for this. The first week of every month is when you can expect it.

What makes this different, though, I do not know. I want this to be a compilation of everything I've been up to in the last month, on the Simbiosis front. This is not a month in the life of Simran, but to be fair, the farm is the best thing about my life right now, so yes little bits of Simran and a whole lot of Simbiosis! The idea is to let you all know what’s going on on the land - what we’re sowing, what we’re growing, what we’re learning, fun stories from the land, any any possible harvests, launches, or collaborations that are coming up, books I’m reading (maybe I’ll start reading more just to tell you all about it, who knows?), schemes, dreams, and everything in between.

One of the added bonuses of learning more about farming and food is also slowly getting to know some amazing producers, chefs, bakers and overall awesome people doing their magic on varying scales, in their respective fields. While not a connoisseur of anything really, I like to think I have some semblance of what's good. I want to share where I’m getting some of the good goods and would love to hear from you as well if there’s anything I should be in on!

Now for the actual updates from the farm

The monsoon just gives life to everything and everyone around it, myself included. The land has been ALIVEEEE! Oh this is what I wish it always looked like - lush, green, and happy! I had known I wanted to grow Tomatoes in our Bombay winter to begin with, but I have no clue about what to do for the rest of the year.

Which is why I have been thinking of this Summer and Monsoon as one big experiment! I’m a seed-hoarder, big time. This time I’ve finally had the chance to open my treasure box and sow packets full of seeds, garden fairy energy has been at an all time high! We’ve been starting everything in the terrace garden, and once they feel like they’ll be okay on their own, I’ve been moving them to the farm.

Clove beans have been enjoying, and so have the Pumpkins that are now growing out of their beds. Not a single Pumpkin yet though, and that’s suss. Lots of summer squashes, lots of beans, lots of flowers - Balsams, Sunflowers and someone called Fire-wheel Gaillardia. Corn for the first time too and that’s a big one! Lots of monsoon transplanting to do, and bigger trees to grow. I’ve already started some like Papaya and Moringa on the terrace and I will move them to the land soon as well! More on that next month.

Below is a list of everything we’ve sown and (probably) grown, or are growing so far. Some fails also that didn’t germinate at all like the Surinam Cherries, I’ll try them again soon. I have just been having a whole lot of fun in the sun, and in the rain. That is all for this month, and I’ve got out my work cut out for the month of July. I hope you have a fantastic month ahead too!

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