The Garhwali farming calendar — eight seasons, not four

If you ask a flatland farmer in Punjab or western Uttar Pradesh how many seasons there are, you will get two: kharif (the monsoon-fed crop, June to October) and rabi (the winter-fed crop, November to April). Some say a third — zaid — for the short summer vegetable crop. Few say more.

If you ask a Garhwali hill farmer the same question, you will get eight. The Indian Council of Agricultural Research's regional research station in Almora records the same. The eight-season calendar is real and useful, and it is one of the first things you learn when you start farming in these hills.

We have learned to think in eight seasons. Here they are, in the order they come.

1. Vasant Ritu (मध्य फाल्गुन – मध्य चैत्र) — mid-Feb to mid-March

The thaw. Snowmelt above 2,500 m has begun and the first water reaches the springs. Soil temperature in the top 20 cm rises through 8 °C. The work on the farm is pre-bud-break preparation — finishing pruning, applying the year's first jeevamrit drench, opening up the compost pits, clearing winter debris.

2. Greeshma Ritu (मध्य चैत्र – मध्य वैशाख) — mid-March to mid-April

Bud-break. The stone fruit are in bloom; the walnut is throwing catkins. Pollinators are emerging. The most dangerous month for a late frost. A clear, still night with the temperature dropping to 0 °C can take out the apricot crop in a single dawn. The traditional response is dhuan — smoky fires lit through the orchard at 03:00 to keep the air moving and the canopy a degree warmer. We have used the technique once, in April 2025, with results that were probably real but hard to measure.

3. Nidagh Ritu (मध्य वैशाख – मध्य ज्येष्ठ) — mid-April to mid-May

Early summer. The trees are in full leaf. Soil moisture is dropping fast — the snowmelt is finishing and the monsoon is still a month away. The hardest watering month. We irrigate every two or three days from the tank, mainly the young trees, and the spring is at about 60% of its winter peak.

4. Pravarsha Ritu (मध्य ज्येष्ठ – मध्य आषाढ़) — mid-May to mid-June

Pre-monsoon. Clouds build up the valley in the afternoons. The first showers arrive — usually around 25 May — but they are brief and the soil is still dry below 30 cm. The month for mulching. We bring the chir-pine needle windrows down off the upper boundary and lay them around every tree and across every terrace. By the time the monsoon proper breaks the orchard floor is two inches thick in needles.

5. Varsha Ritu (मध्य आषाढ़ – मध्य भाद्रपद) — mid-June to mid-September

The monsoon. Rain almost every day for ten weeks. Soil moisture at field capacity throughout. The trees do their fastest growth of the year. No irrigation needed; spring is at peak. The work is mainly drainage management — keeping water moving across the terraces without taking soil with it. Disease pressure on the stone fruit is real (canker, root rot) and the canopy has to be open enough that air moves through.

6. Sharad Ritu (मध्य भाद्रपद – मध्य कार्तिक) — mid-September to mid-November

Post-monsoon. The clouds lift; the light becomes very clean and direct. The harvest months. Walnut drops in mid-September, apricot is long gone, kafal and hisalu are finished. The vegetable gardens come in. Soil moisture starts dropping but is still sufficient. The third jeevamrit application of the year goes on at the start of this season.

7. Hemant Ritu (मध्य कार्तिक – मध्य पौष) — mid-November to mid-January

Pre-winter. Day temperatures still pleasant; nights drop to 4–6 °C. The deciduous trees lose their leaves; the soil microbial activity slows. The pruning months. We open-vase prune every stone fruit between mid-December and end of January, in the bare-tree window. The cold helps wound closure.

8. Shishir Ritu (मध्य पौष – मध्य फाल्गुन) — mid-January to mid-February

The deep cold. Snow falls above 2,500 m; we get cold rain at our altitude, occasionally a dusting of snow. The trees are dormant. Almost nothing happens on the farm — Pawan still walks the orchard every morning to check on tree-base damage from porcupine and kakar deer, but no inputs go on and no major work is done. The soil is cold and the microbes are asleep but, as we have written before, working in the dark.

Why this matters

Two seasons works in the plains because the climate has two main modes — wet and dry. In the hills, the climate has eight, and they each ask something different of the farm. The chemical orchard calendar — fertilise twice a year, spray monthly — does not match this rhythm well. The eight-season calendar does.

It is also one of those Garhwali things that, when you absorb it, makes the whole landscape feel less strange. A piece of land that looks the same on a December morning and a March morning is, in fact, in two completely different ritus, doing two completely different things. The trees know this. The farmer's job is to know it too.