When the Department of Forestry and Wildlife here in Hawaii asked the monks to help host a "Landowners Workshop," we thought it would be a group of people with land who knew very little about growing crops and trees, and the workshop would be an introduction.

Much to our surprise, the group turned out to contain a broad cross section of Kauai residents including Lelan Nishek, old time friend and owner of the largest landscape company and nursery on the island, Marty Fernandez, another old time friend and our tree growing mentor who is the manager and botanist at a local Botanical Garden and tree farm. There were seasoned organic growers, neophyte land owners and representatives of several federal and state agencies involved in forestry.

The workshop was greatly enhanced by the presence of Gilles Lebbe, master forester and the head of Green Energy Team, a company that is producing electricity from biomass and which has planted and is growing thousands of acres of trees. Gilles discussed at length the complex process his company goes through to find the right variety and sub variety of trees, the right fertilizers and methods of planting to get the best growth with the least investment. An impressive presentation indeed! in addition he answered many questions from the group. With such a highly experienced group there was a great synergy with questions, experience and ideas being shared broadly.

The group used our equipment tent on Himalayan Acres for one session and then had lunch and another session in our banyan mandapam at the monastery. They visited our organic noni orchard and also our first Koa planting. It turns out that our Koa planting has become well known among local forestry and wildlife experts as the first production orchard for Koa bred specially to be resistant to a disease called Koa Wilt which kills most Koa at low altitude. This breeding program holds great promise for future reforestation of the islands and so there is much more attention focused on our little planting than we had realized.

At the end of the workshop, Sadasivanathaswami took this very harmonious and enthusiastic group on a tour of the temple and temple gardens for a perfect end to a long day.

The Garden Island newspaper, on the garden island of Kauai, is known for dropping by every now and again to catch up with the latest monks project. Today, Paramacharya Sadasivanathaswami and Acharya Arumuganathaswami sit down with journalist Alden Alayvilla to give a short report on the noni operation going on across the river from the monastery. There we have several hundred acres of agricultural land, and we have several thousand noni trees. Hundreds of gallons of noni juice are processed right here in the aadheenam and sent over to California for bottling.

Our noni juice is in every health store on kauai and we are growing at a steady pace. We give the Garden Island newspaper a look into what we are currently doing with the land across the river and an update of the goings on of the monastery.

Every so often our monks take the tractor out to the cow pastures to mow the grass. This keeps weeds at bay and helps to ensure that our beloved bovine get all the tasty fresh green grass that they can eat. Sivanadiyar Kanthanatha offers us some photos of his recent visit with our happy herd. We currently have four cows in our monastery pastures on this side of the river. They are all gentle Jersey cows and include Teta--our youngest, Marvelous (Teta's mother), Salute and Anu. Om

In 1947 a bill was passed creating 16 conservation districts in Hawaii and outlining their powers and duties. to administer and conduct soil and water conservation activities within the State of Hawaii. These are legally constituted self-governing sub-units of the Hawaii state government and are controlled by a board consisting of a board of five directors, three elected by agricultural land-users or land-owners and two appointed by the SWCD directors.  

At their annual meeting of all the districts in the state, this year held on Kauai, they visited and were visibly impressed by the monastery's Koa plantation on our land across the river. Because of our efforts to develop a conservation plan to change degraded cane land into rich forests of mahogany and Koa and to use cover crops and other methods to enhance our plantings, Saiva Siddhanta Church was selected as the "Conservationist of the Year" for the second time.

Today our Siddhidata Kulam receive five units of Pyramid Aeroponic planters. There were gifted from Nagarajan Pillay and his family from Victoria, Canada. Our Siddhidata kulam is in the process for building a green house to grow vegetables in, utilizing various methods such as Aeroponics, hydroponics and grow bags. We were also gifted grow bags to experiment growing our vegetables in! We are excited about this and just need to few dry days to finish the greenhouse construction!
It is amazing how well vegetables grows in these Pyramids! http://www.pyramidgarden.com

The monks recently attended a day-long meeting of the Tropical Fruit Growers Association which was held on Kauai. Highlights of the day included a lecture on avocado cultivation by an expert from Japan. A quality avocado sells for $10 a piece in Tokyo! He had developed sophisticated pruning and support methods based on the guideline that the tree should be no taller than the owner. One such tree was producing 300 fruits a year. At the back of the room was a table with 75 different tropical fruits grown in Hawaii--the monastery has about 50 of them, and there were at least a dozen we had never seen before.

After months of toiling and research, Acharya Arumuganathaswami was ready to test out his recently-crafted barrell washer. Our method of cleaning the freshly harvested fruit heretofore was entirely manual. While effective, it isn't entirely the most efficient. Automating some of that process will aid in the overall production.

This past retreat, father and son duo Nagarajan and Divyesh Pillai joined some of our monks on a noni harvest. Acharya Arumuganathaswami along with Natyams Nandinatha, Rajanatha, and Jayanatha made up a full group of six and managed to pick just over 1,800 pounds (820 kg) of the magical medicinal fruit. This fruit will eventually become noni juice and serve as the highly beneficial organic elixir sold by the monastery.

Recently the Siddhidata Kulam planted 62 papaya trees on land that was recently dug up by machines and made smoother for ease of mowing. Thankfully they snapped some photos along the way.

Our Siddhidata Kulam has mastered many aspects of organic gardening. Much depends on finding the right species and seed for plants that work in our environment. Through the years they have worked hard on uncovering the secrets of growing papayas at our location, saving seed from the biggest, fittest and most disease resistant varieties. The papaya you see above is almost two feet long and had a rich red-orange flesh inside. Rich in vitamin C and beta carotene and digestive enzymes. When it landed at the breakfast counter, the monks were in awe upon seeing this papaya. "Let's take a picture for TAKA!" Of course Lord Siva and the devas do most of the work. Thank you!