“I’d like to suggest that you include a pretty community vegetable garden and permaculture garden to set you apart from all the other retirement lifestyle properties,” writes Shawn Phelps. “As well as it being a great selling point, I think people would love it and enjoy it.”

We’d asked for input, and Shawn’s note gave us some great ideas in developing the perfect three-season retirement community – as well as the opportunity to meet a truly interesting woman.

Two years ago, the Toronto-based writer and author bought a small two-acre farm on the edge of the town of Meaford (a short stroll from Meaford Haven, in fact.) Over the next two years she planted a small grove of fruit and nut trees (sour cherry, plum, pear, hazelnut, and Korean pine trees) as the start to her food-producing permaculture garden. Permaculture takes lessons from nature, positioning complementary plants together so they nuture and support each other, without the need for many traditional practices, such as fertilizing and spraying.

“Permaculture copies forests,” says Shawn. “Forests don’t need anyone to take care of them. So you have food forests, with a base of fruit and nut trees, then in between you have plants and bushes that support those trees. If they need nitrogen, you put in nitrogen-fixing plants; things like that. It takes some time, but once it’s set up, it doesn’t take much work. It takes care of itself. And you get a lot of food in a very small amount of space.”

As a journalist “obsessed with understanding humanity”, Shawn has travelled to more than 20 countries, and her travels introduced her to countries where food shortages and pollution are taken for granted. “It started me thinking about what solutions there might be,” says Shawn. “I saw this real movement toward things like permaculture and organic farming, and eventually it became an obsession.”

She brought these ideas to her Meaford home (“Meaford’s my favourite place on earth,” says Shawn.), and her environmentally friendly, food producing permaculture garden is well on its way.

She says she finds it weird that none of the other retirement communities in the Southern Georgian Bay area seem to be incorporating anything like this. “They might have a couple of trees, but they haven’t gone out of their way to create anything beautiful. “And why else would you move to Meaford unless you wanted to be near beautiful nature and connect with it?” she says.

Shawn Phelps in her Meaford garden

Visit Shawn’s website at www.shawnphelps.com. Some more thoughts on gardening and retirement living soon.