Onion storage and pomegranate farming

During our trip to Nighoj, while we were going through the villages, we saw the unique way of onion storage. Okay one thing, here in Maharashtra villages are organized in a different way from North, where the villagers live in one place and they have their farming fields outside the villages. Even 4-5 KM. far from the village also. Here in Maharashtra, you would see people make their home in or nearby their farming land. 

Now for the onion storage, villagers have made the beautiful storage rooms out of thatch, bamboo logs and iron wire. This hut kind of structure is covered from all the sides and since there would be pores all around due to the mesh created with iron wire, so we can see even from outside how the onions were stored. They would make a bunch of onions and will tie them in the mesh. 

These huts were all of rectangular shape, around 5 feet of height but of varying length. The richer the farmer, the bigger the length of the hut. Means more onion in store, means more money which ultimately means bigger house and which was evident from the most nearby house from the hut.

We stopped at one of them and clicked some pictures. The length of that storage unit was pretty much long and also the nearby house can give a run to any bungalow in metro cities.  

But one thing was sure to be bothered about. Doesn’t matter how much safe was those huts, suppose if rain comes what would happen. Those huts can bear drizzling, but heavy rain…no way. Even if we assume that owner will do some provisions like covering it with plastic, still in case of heavy rains when water gets logged, it would be very very difficult. And given the material which was stored, Onion, which starts perishing if anyone in the pile is rotten. One storage units of average length had around 50-100 quintal of onions. Loss will surely be large in case weather worsens. 

Same villages had the pomegranate farming also. Fruit was very small then. Even there were flowers in the tree. If you happen to travel in Maharashtra around September October, you can see those trees, all laden with pomegranate. Each tree will at least have 80-100 fruits. I saw this when I was visiting Shirdi during that time period. And you would find people selling fresh fruits on the roadside.

Happy Ghumakkadi  :)