Netting the first rohu: our fish ponds, three seasons in

Digging ponds on farmland felt like a gamble in 2018. Here's what harvest mornings actually look like now.

When my father first suggested digging fish ponds into perfectly good cropland, the village had opinions. Wheat you can see. Vegetables you can see. Fish are an act of faith — you put small fingerlings into brown water and for months you have nothing to show anyone but a pond.

A harvest morning starts at 4am. Fish handle stress badly in heat, so the net goes in before the sun does. Six men walk the seine across the pond in a slow arc, and there is a long minute — every single time — where the net feels empty and my stomach drops. Then the water starts to boil with silver and everyone pretends they weren't worried.

We raise rohu, thaila, and some tilapia, stocked thin. A crowded pond grows fish faster on paper, but they sit in their own waste and you end up dosing the water to keep them alive. At low density the pond mostly manages itself — we test oxygen and pH every day, and the corrections are small.

The part I didn't expect: the ponds feed the fields. Pond water is rich — fish do their business in it, to put it politely — and pumped onto vegetables it works like a gentle fertiliser. The plots on pond water are visibly greener than the ones on canal water alone. Nothing at agricultural college taught me that; the farm did.

Fresh fish is netted against confirmed orders only — we don't hold fish on ice hoping someone buys it. If you want some, WhatsApp us and we'll tell you when the next net goes in.