About Living Soil Tree Farm
What we do
Living Soil Tree Farm has several areas of focus but the bulk of our work revolves around trees in one way or another. We started growing trees officially as a licensed nursery in 2023. On a smaller scale I (Nick) have been growing trees from seed since 2021 and have worked with trees in a landscaping capacity since my teenage years. Our main focus at this current point in time is on growing seedling trees and collecting seed from exceptional parent trees. We are also working on small food forest and demonstration sites in NC and VA. Through this work we hope to continue exploring the possibilities of different species, establishment methods and design practices. In the future we plan to potentially expand into seed production and plant breeding of annual vegetable crops.
In addition to growing seedling trees, we are also offering a food scrap pickup service to local households. We are currently working to expand our on-farm composting operation to meet our own needs. We may one day explore the idea of producing and distributing worm compost.
As a species and global culture, we face a multitude of interconnected crisis today. Each day it seems more likely that various tipping points could be right around the corner. We firmly believe that agroforestry has an important role to play in the deconstruction and reconstruction of the current paradigm. Labels are tricky and agroforestry encompasses many practices. It is a modern word used to refer to a group of farming techniques most of which are 1000s of years old. At a minimum we hope to support agroforestry projects, big and small, through our nursery by growing trees and providing education. Beyond that we hope to establish agroforestry systems at our NC and VA sites.
Tree work (and agriculture generally) is generational. The real fruits of this labor will not be experienced for several generations because it takes time for trees to reach maturity, landscapes to heal, and cultures to change. At the same time there are many benefits to be experienced in the early years. Many of the trees we work with can begin producing in under ten years! We owe it to ourselves, to our ancestors, and to future generations to relate to the land as if it is part of us. The land is part of us.
Our Growing Practices
When growing trees, we aim to only use methods which promote soil and ecosystem health. Our goal is to cultivate microbially rich soils to support our trees. To accomplish this, we use a combination of practices learned from different people and ideologies including but not limited to; permaculture, regenerative agriculture, the Soil Food Web School, and Advancing Eco Agriculture, and experiences of many other wonderful nursery folk! We never use synthetic fertilizers, herbicides, or pesticides. Our main inputs are leaf compost, woodchips, leaves, and worm compost.
We mainly grow trees bare root for distribution during the colder months of the year. We like to offer bare roots trees for several reasons. Most importantly bare root trees transplant very well and are easy to ship. We do keep a small number of trees in pots for local customers. We can offer local pickup in Durham NC, Cedar Grove NC, Martinsville VA, and Blacksburg VA.
Most of the trees we grow start out as seeds however we do grow some species using asexual propagation methods. Asexual propagation has a role to play but we feel it important to focus on seed work so that we may increase diversity and thus resistance to various stressors. Species that we often grow from cuttings include elderberry, some dogwood species, willow, blackberries and others. Other plants such as hazelnut can be propagated via stool layering or by digging up suckers.
How we got here
I (Nick) have been in a love affair with trees for as long as I can remember. When I was a baby, my parents often had to carry me outside to get me to fall asleep. When I hear them recount this it is clear to me that even as a baby being around trees brought me peace and a feeling of security. I will try not to tell my whole life story here but this the story of how our farm came to be. As I began to grow up, I had no idea what to do with my love for trees and nature. We grew up in the suburbs around Philly on Lenni/Lenape land. We moved around some but I always insisted that we look for houses near wooded areas. That wish was granted, I always had access to a small patch of woods near from the house. I spent a lot of time running around in the woods right up to the time I went off to college.
For various reasons I chose to go to Drexel University which is far from any woods in the middle of Philly. I studied Civil Engineering and focused my co-op experiences on construction management positions (I could not stand being behind a desk). It was never a great fit but I did graduate and get a job working on highway and port projects. I enjoyed being around all the big equipment and getting to work outside but the stress and the culture of these jobsites quickly wore me down. After several years it was clear that this was not what I wanted to do with my life. I began to process and reflect on my life experience and decided that what I truly wanted was to work with plants.
As I was exploring this in my mid 20s the trees spoke very loudly to me. I began spending a lot of time in the woods again as I had when I was a younger lad. This exploration led me down many paths and I learned a lot about myself and nature. Most of what happened was self-education, using the internet and books to teach myself about topics like ecology, compost, seed saving, plant breeding, forestry, food forests, agroforestry, growing trees from seed, foraging and more. I took an online course at the Soil Food Web School that was very impactful on me.
I absolutely fell in love with wild tree crops like black walnut and paw paws. I had many conversations with the trees during this time. These were the same trees who had watched me grow up. It took me a while to gather up the courage but I eventually decided that I wanted to try to start my own small-scale farm. This idea was SO overwhelming as I had virtually no farming experience beyond some gardening as a young child, landscaping experience in high school and self-directed research. I was not even sure what I wanted to grow, I have so many interests; compost, seed production and plant breeding, tree crops, growing seedling trees etc. I did have one thing going for me, a big thing, we have a family farm in North Carolina.
I knew very little about the farm. My grandparents left the farm after high school to pursue off farm education and careers. Nobody in the family has farmed our land in years, it has all been rented out for organic tobacco and hay. North Carolina is also totally unfamiliar to me. Despite all the unknowns I decided that the farm was too great an opportunity not to explore. I felt and still feel incredibly privileged to have access to the farm. I arrived here in Orange County NC on Mánu: Yį Įsuwą (Catawba), Shakori, Saponi, Cheraw, Occaneechi lands in April of 2022. Since moving here, I have met some amazing people and begun to develop a relationship to this land. It has been a difficult, but rewarding transition. In this first year I explored many of my farming interests more and learned a ton from local growers. Over the winter of 2022-2023 I took some time to reflect on the whole experience and decide on some areas to focus on in 2023. This takes us to the establishment of Living Soil Tree Farm which occurred in early 2023. As I reflected over winter it became clear to me that I want my main work to revolve around trees.
I chose the name Living Soil Tree Farm because to me it felt like a comprehensive way to describe my vision. My focus is on trees grown in vibrant, living soils. If I were just focused on trees, I may be tempted to use practices which do not prioritize ecosystem health. Because I am also focused on living soil, I only use practices which increase soil health. Soil health and ecosystem health cannot be separated. To have one you must have the other. To have either you must have healthy plants. Additionally, I am a bit of a soil microbe nerd. I love learning about the microbes who live in soils/compost and form symbiotic relationships with plants.
Most of our agricultural and urban soils are devoid of beneficial microorganisms. One powerful tool for bringing microbes back into a landscape is compost. Compost is not the only tool but it’s an important one for inoculating sites with beneficial biology. Composting is an art and the microbial communities vary wildly from batch to batch. I consider myself a microbe farmer just as much as a tree farmer. Here at Living Soil Tree Farm, we love to observe the life in our soils. One great way to do this is by using a microscope. We are also exploring DNA testing and other analytical methods to examine the life in our ecosystem. Aside from lab methods a lot can be learned from watching how the plants express themselves.
I chose to include farm in the name as opposed to nursery because I dream of expanding beyond the nursery work in many ways. Alongside the nursery work I am busy planting out trees in our landscape. The first trees we planted are near the nursery site in more of a food forest setup. We plan to expand our plantings on the farm and implement alley cropping, silvopasture, and windbreaks. I dream of diverse agroforestry systems all the time and have many ideas for farm projects here. We shall see how many I get around to.
A note on breeding
Most commercial tree crops are grown on grafted (cloned) trees. In contrast most wild foraged food is picked from seed grown trees. I think we can benefit the most by using a combination of both grafted cultivars and seed grown trees in our landscapes. Much breeding work has been done on commercial tree crops such as apples, English walnuts, and peaches etc. While some breeding work has been done on native food producing trees there is still a lot of room for improvement. On the one hand seed holds unlimited possibility. Trees grown from seed collected in our bioregion will be the most adapted to our conditions and the most resilient to changes in climate. Seed grown trees also have the potential to express new and desirable traits such as tastier fruits & nuts or more productivity. On the other hand, there are already some improved cultivars of native tree crops such as thin shelled black walnuts and larger American persimmons. It is important to note that these improved cultivars of 'wild' food producing trees only exist because of generations of work and care by the native humans of Turtle Island (North America). Although these cultivars exist, they are rare and we all would benefit from spreading these trees around more.
It is up to each of us to decide whether grafted or seedling trees are appropriate to our landscapes. I do not think there is a one size fits all approach and that both types of trees have a role to play. I feel it is absolutely possible to achieve our tree crop improvement goals while also increasing the diversity of tree systems. This diversity is key to resilience. I am apprehensive of massive grafted plantings due to the potential for spread of pests and disease. I would love to see more orchards of cultivar native tree crops. I think each bio region should have access to such an orchard as a genetic repository for seed collection. Generally, seedlings grown from such orchards produce a high percentage of “improved” trees as offspring. This is the model I am most excited about. Grafted orchards spread across the continent as a seed source for much larger plantings.
Each time we plant a seed we create an opportunity for something new and amazing to come into existence. Whether working with trees or veggies when you grow from seed anything is possible. Through plant breeding we can change almost any characteristic of plants. Larger fruit, different colored flowers, such a range of flavors, hardiness, drought tolerance etc, all can be modified by breeding.
I am stunned and dazzled by the diversity of colors, shapes, and sizes that can be found in annual crops. Beans and corn are great examples. You can find the whole rainbow in a patch of beans and corn (depending on what varieties you grew). Seed has an amazing power to adapt to different environments. Every year that seed is saved in a specific bio region it gets more adapted to that location. Seed also adapts to farm management styles. For all these reasons the best seed you can grow is seed you grew yourself or seed that was at least grown close to where you farm/garden.
All farmers used to be seed savers but over the past 100 years this has changed. It is time to go forward into the past and become seed savers again. At Living Soil Tree Farm, we really value diversity of seed. Many of the varieties we grow and save seed from are diverse populations (often called a grex or landrace). We do select for certain traits such as plant vigor and taste but overall, we allow a lot of diversity in shape, color, size, and time to maturity. This diversity ensures that under any conditions some of the plants in the population will thrive. Just as we want to be in right relationship to land, we also want to be in right relationship to seed. Seeds tell stories and they are part of us.