The Nursery

Two year old butternuts in our nursery

Air Prune Beds

Seeds are sown into our nutrient rich air prune beds - specialized beds raised above the ground surface with a mesh bottom that use air exposure to create a fibrous and dense root system. Air prune beds prevent trees from circling or forming a taproot. When the primary root hits the air at the bottom of the bed, it signals the plant to stop sending energy to the taproot and start creating lateral feeder roots throughout the entire soil column. This technique significantly reduces transplant shock and creates highly resilient, easily transportable plants. Research has shown that air prune beds can increase growth rates by a significant quantity as a result of the dense and healthy root system. Learn how we built our air prune below!

Nutrient dense food plants

With the nutritional quality of modern foods at an alarming decline, the focus of our nursery is on growing nutrient dense food plants. Two main factors affect nutrient density in plants - genetics (the variety) and soil ecology (the soil they’re growing in). Modern intensive breeding focuses on traits such as size, yield, shelf stability, and pest resistance rather than minerals, vitamins, and proteins - leading to a decline in essential nutrients. Older heirloom varieties of food plants often have a higher nutrient density and taste better because breeding several decades ago focused primarily on superior flavor. Additionally, there is a direct link between mineral content in the soil to mineral content in our food and overall human health. Our nursery continues to build a rich, living soil full of micro-organisms and minerals to benefit both the plants and us! Growing food for nutrient density rather than growing for quantity should be at the forefront of our agricultural system. Our focus of growing nutrient dense food plants comes from inspiration through the Koanga Institute - New Zealand’s largest heritage seed bank and by applying knowledge of traditional, indigenous diets.

Regenerative organic practices

Our nursery provides bare root trees and berries with 1) superior growth traits for fruit/nut size, yield, flavor, precocity, and disease resistance, and 2) grows the trees in living soil using regenerative organic practices. Our nursery beds have a high organic and lightweight composition without using peat moss, coir, vermiculite, perlite or other components that are ecologically extractive, mined or produced from distant locations. The seeds that get sown into our nursery are from known cultivars or have been observed and selected by our team over a number of years because they have shown desirable characteristics. Many of our seeds are sourced from plant breeders who have been improving traits over generations or decades! Browse our different seed sources below!