Harud Faim Farms

Harud (Kashmiri: هَرُد) is the Kashmiri word for autumn. In the traditional Kashmiri calendar it runs from roughly 15 September to 15 November — the season when the chinar turns crimson, the paddy is cut, the apples come off the trees, and the walnut harvest begins.

For most of India, autumn is a temperature change. In Kashmir it is a deadline. Harud is when a year's work either comes in or doesn't, and almost everything a Kashmiri household eats through winter is gathered, dried and stored during these eight weeks.

Harud in the Kashmiri calendar

Kashmiris have traditionally divided the year into six seasons of two months each, rather than the four most of the subcontinent uses. The system was recorded by Walter R. Lawrence in The Valley of Kashmir in 1895 and is still in everyday use:

• Sonth — spring, mid-March to mid-May
• Grishm — summer, mid-May to mid-July
• Wahrat — the wet, hot season, mid-July to mid-September
• Harud — autumn, mid-September to mid-November
• Wandeh — winter, mid-November to mid-January
• Shishur — the deep cold, mid-January to mid-March

Six seasons rather than four is not decoration. A two-month season maps closely onto what a farmer actually has to do, and the names carry that: Wahrat is the rain you wait out, Harud is the harvest you cannot be late for, Shishur is the cold you survive. In Urdu, Harud is Mousam-e-Khizaan.

What actually happens during Harud

The chinar turns. The chinar — bouen in Kashmiri , Platanus orientalis to a botanist — is the state tree of Jammu and Kashmir, and felling one is a punishable offence. Its broad five-lobed leaves go from green through amber to deep crimson across October. This is the image most people outside the valley associate with Kashmiri autumn, and it is the reason Harud draws more visitors than any season except spring.

The harvest comes in, in order. Maize first, then walnuts and almonds, then apples, then the paddy. Saffron is last — the Pampore crocus flowers late October into November, at the very end of Harud.

Everything gets dried. Kashmiri households spend Harud preparing for a winter that closes roads. Vegetables are sun-dried on rooftops, firewood is stacked, rice and fodder are stored. In villages, weddings are commonly pushed to the end of October or early November, once the crop is safely in.

Harud is walnut season

The walnut — doon in Kashmiri — is one of the first crops Harud brings down. Kashmir accounts for the overwhelming majority of India's walnut production , and the walnut belt runs the length of the valley from Shopian in the south to Kupwara in the north, which is now among the largest producing districts.

How you know a walnut is ready

Not by the date. The green outer husk splits, and the packing tissue inside the shell turns brown. That's the signal, and the window is narrow — pick too early and the oil content hasn't finished building, which flattens the flavour. Pick too late and you lose nuts to the ground and the weather.

How the harvest is done

Almost exactly as it was a century ago. A climber goes up a tree that may be thirty to forty-five metres tall, usually barefoot for grip, carrying a long willow pole — a luchh— and beats the branches until the nuts come down. Underneath, families collect what falls.

Then the green husk — gollur — has to come off, mostly work done by the women of the household. The husk contains juglone, which stains hands black for weeks and irritates skin. After husking, the nuts are washed and laid out in the sun to dry. That drying is what gives a Kashmiri walnut its keeping quality and its flavour.

It is dangerous work. Climbers fall every season in Kashmir, and some don't survive it. Any honest account of where a Kashmiri walnut comes from has to include that.

Why the timing shows up in the jar

A walnut tree gives one crop a year. There is no second run, no off-season top-up, no way to grind in March from something picked in March. Everything made from Kashmiri walnuts for the following twelve months comes out of those few weeks in Harud — which is why a single-origin walnut butter is, unavoidably, a seasonal product wearing a year-round label.

The part that doesn't make the postcards

Kashmiri growers rarely capture much of what their crop is eventually worth. Most sell to middlemen at the orchard gate; the nuts travel to Delhi and beyond, and the price multiplies several times over on the way without much of that increase returning to the valley. Cheaper imported walnuts, largely from China and California, undercut Kashmiri fruit on price in Indian markets despite a real difference in oil content and taste.

That gap between what the valley grows and what the valley earns is the reason Faim Farms exists. We buy directly from orchards in Handwara, Kupwara, at roughly 1,800 metres, and we press the Kagzi walnuts we buy into butter ourselves rather than passing the crop along.

Visiting during Harud

Mid-October to early November is the peak for chinar colour. Srinagar's Naseem Bagh and the Mughal gardens are the obvious places to see it; the walnut work happens in the villages, in the orchard belts of Kupwara, Baramulla, Anantnag and Shopian. Days are dry and cool, nights are cold, and the light is low and gold — which is why Harud is the season Kashmiri photographers wait for all year.

Common questions

What does Harud mean?

Harud is the Kashmiri word for autumn. It refers to the season from roughly mid-September to mid-November, one of six seasons in the traditional Kashmiri calendar.

When is Harud in Kashmir?

Mid-September to mid-November — conventionally 15 September to 15 November. Peak chinar colour falls in the second half of October.

When are walnuts harvested in Kashmir?

From September into October, during Harud. The crop is ready when the green husk splits and the tissue inside the shell browns.

What is a walnut called in Kashmiri?

Doon. In Urdu and Hindi it is akhrot. The thin-shelled variety Kashmir is known for is the Kagzi walnut — kagzi meaning paper-like, for a shell you can crack in your hand.

Why is the chinar associated with Harud?

The chinar's leaves turn amber and then deep crimson through October, and it is the state tree of Jammu and Kashmir. Cutting one down is an offence.

What else is harvested during Harud?

Maize, almonds, apples and paddy, with saffron last — the Pampore crocus flowers from late October into November.