Six and a half
acres, three
generations deep.
Our family planted the first trees on Haritha Farms in 1962. For thirty years it was a rubber plantation, like most of the midlands. In the early 1990s we tore up the monoculture, sworn off chemicals, and transitioned into a less intensive, sustainable, replanted forest garden of pepper, coconut, cocoa, vanilla, turmeric and medicinal plants.
We opened the kitchen to travellers in 1992. Since then we've hosted day visitors, residencies, NRI families coming home, and a long quiet line of solo guests writing books on the veranda. We are still one small family, one long table, and four bungalows. We've been intentional about not growing.
The food has always been vegetarian, inspired by Kerala's diverse regional and community traditions. Madhu has run the kitchen for twenty-one years. Jacob runs the rest. Our family still does the gardening.
Pepper. Cocoa. Cardamom. Vanilla. Turmeric.
Tellicherry, climbing borrowed trees.
More than 50 trees, three varieties.
Beans for our bean-to-bar program.
Twelve varieties; not all sweet.
Small green pods, perfumed.
Same fruit, two spices.
Bark, the real one.
Hand-pollinated, slow-cured.
Bright orange, freshly dug.
From neighbours, mostly.
Right behind the kitchen.
More than 40, for Ayurvedic cooking.
What you can do
between meals.
Many of these are included in our packages. Mix and match for a tailor-made stay, or just pick a couple and spend the rest on the veranda.
Some of Kerala’s oldest parishes — the St Thomas tradition.
Including the arattu when the river floods up to the temple.
How a Kerala lorry gets its face. A favourite afternoon.
The least-touristed hour any of our guests have.
Loud, fragrant, and over by 11am.
A neighbour, 40 minutes away, who makes some of South India’s best.
Three hours on the kind of boat the locals use, picnic lunch.
The local commuter ferry, not the houseboat circus.
At trusted partner centres ten minutes away.
A drive into the Western Ghats, a walk among the rows.
Visits, and an optional one-day pottery workshop.
Quality local product, packed to international standards.
Snack-making, tailors, fabric, shoes — the things tourists never see.