Food Forest & Gaia Garden Growing Food, Growing Ourselves
We are dedicated to creating a space where our care for the earth mirrors our care for the inner life. Every plant, every harvest, every learning moment reflects our commitment to leave the land healthier than we found it. And in the process, we are discovering the joys and challenges of growing food—nourishing ourselves as we nourish the planet.
In Progress Box
đź’š A Work in Progress: We are learning. We are stumbling and succeeding in equal measure. Not all the food we eat is grown here (yet!), but our journey toward greater food sovereignty is well underway.
Growing Food as Spiritual Practice
One of Clear Sky’s many projects is learning to grow food—not simply as a practical matter, but as a profound spiritual practice and path of transformation. We are committed to innovative sustainable agriculture and permaculture, and we understand that working with the land teaches us as much about ourselves as it does about the plants.
What We're Learning Through Growing
- Fast-tracking personal growth and transformation through land-based practices
- Seeking new ways to deepen our spiritual practice through direct contact with the earth
- Learning, living, and relating in conscious community
- Reaching new levels of freedom by examining the patterns and views that limit us
- Contemplating the wisdom offered by the plants and land
Our Gardens
🌳 The Food Forest
Our one-acre cold-climate food forest is the heart of our growing practice. Designed and installed between 2012-2013, this thriving demonstration project showcases a sustainable, permaculture-based agroforestry system.
What’s Growing:
Nut trees, fruit trees, medicinals, berries, vines, shrubs, timber, mulch and shelter trees—all grown together in a holistic ecosystem-based design. The forest is producing abundantly, and we are happily trying to keep up!
🌱 The Gaia Garden
Our annual garden is where we experiment with cool-climate crops and learn the rhythms of seasonal growing. It’s our classroom and our joy.
Growing Here:
Tomatoes, kale, squash, beans, potatoes, chives, nettles, mint, and perennial flowers—each plant a teacher, each season a lesson in humility and wonder.
What's on Our Plates
From the Food Forest, we harvest: cherries, rhubarb, saskatoon berries, chokecherries, apples, pears, plums, hazelnuts, aronia berries, seabuckthorn berries and leaves, haskap berries, and fresh mint for our kitchen and our guests.
From the Gaia Garden, we are learning to grow tomatoes, kale, squash, beans, and peppers—with small harvests that teach us volumes.
The Journey of Growing
Anyone who truly gardens knows this: the learning never stops, and the surprises are endless.
🪴 Our Discoveries So Far
On Attachment: Some of us meditate with our seedlings and then find ourselves reluctant to harvest them. We’ve grown fond. Others happily nibble away. Either way, we’re learning about non-attachment in the most delicious way possible.
On Worms & Compost: We never thought we’d get excited about worms. We never imagined ourselves getting genuinely thrilled about manure and compost. Yet here we are.
On Mindfulness: Watering schedules have become a meditation. We’re learning what mindful attention looks like in practice—showing up, paying attention, caring for what’s in our hands.
On Weeds: Weeds grow really, really well in the rainy months. We’re learning to appreciate their enthusiasm while gently redirecting it.
On Resilience: Cut dandelions open and close at night, even after they’re picked. Prickly nettles grow easily here with minimal care and become nourishing soup and tea. The plants teach us about thriving in cold climates and making the most of what we have.
On the Ancient Practice: We’re learning about the Buddhist meditation practice of seed, stalk, flower. We’re noticing how long an iris flower lasts on our shrine. We’re discovering that the garden is not separate from our spiritual practice—it IS our practice.
The truth? We are so not good at this yet. But that’s precisely the point. We are learning, stumbling, celebrating every small success, and laughing at our failures. The plants are patient teachers, and the earth is a forgiving mentor.
A Pioneer in Cold-Climate Food Forests
Clear Sky is a pioneer of food forest agriculture in Canada. We were East Kootenay’s first demonstration food forest project—a model that has inspired others and continues to thrive and evolve.
This project received support through the British Columbia Agroforestry Industry Development Initiative, and it demonstrates what’s possible when we commit to working with the land rather than against it.
Learning Together
We are a learning center, and we believe in learning with others. We are devoted to ecological education and have hosted numerous gatherings of like-minded people over the years, including courses on grasslands restoration, permaculture workshops, and food forest education with expert Canadian teachers.
With Deep Gratitude:
Leslie Lowe, landscape architect and dear friend, designed our food forest and the landscaping around our buildings. She has been a major consultant on Clear Sky’s Master Use Land Plan and continues to guide our land vision.
Richard Walker, musician, cook, permaculture consultant, and author of “Food Forestry North of the 49th,” is an excellent friend and trusted guide for our food forest and permaculture journey.
Want to learn more about how we feed our community?
[Link: https://www.clearskycenter.org/food-and-kitchen/]
Text: Explore Our Food & Kitchen
Growing food is teaching us what we came here to learn: how to pay attention, how to care, how to be present, and how to remain humble before the earth. Every weed, every harvest, every season brings us deeper into understanding what it means to live in genuine relationship with the land that sustains us.