PERMACULTURE PLAN
The temple and retreat sits on a ten-acre parcel. Land development around the retreat will focus on creating beauty and food production using permaculture practices. Visitors will be drawn to the property by its floral and arboreal beauty, its healing energies. They will have the opportunity to commune with elemental life and enjoy an edible landscape of wildflowers, herbs, berries, fruit trees and vegetable gardens. Quiet meditation areas will invite visitors to spend time outside. They will feel the flame of comfort and peace as they experience the fresh air, the sunshine, and all that surrounds them of mother nature.
To develop the grounds of the retreat, Mona Lewis, a permaculture consultant, has prepared a comprehensive five-year plan for the retreat. This plan includes development of a water catchment system, shelterbelts, food forests, hugel guilds, a greenhouse, hoop houses, a vegetable garden, composting, ponds, bees, goats, and chickens.
The planting has already begun and will continue over several years. And with her hired team of gardeners and workers she is creating two large fenced-in areas around the temple—one, a swale orchard, and the other an edible fence made up of trees and shrubs. A variety of flowering plants surrounding the temple has been completed.