Thanks you all for planting trees!
Thanks you all for planting trees!
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filler@godaddy.com
We are a small family farm. We care about food, making more food and empowering others to do the same. We maintain a large annual garden, livestock, several acres of orchard trees and rough pasture that is inter-planted with young nut trees. Almost all of the trees we sell are growing out at our place and we are constantly sourcing new species and cultivars to test out.
The nursery began inadvertently while Peter was building up the farm. He set out to try to find some of the weird plants mentioned in the first generation Permaculture textbooks and it quickly became obvious that apples and a few plums and pears were the only species that were available locally.
The nursery is an outgrowth of the farm. The business is fairly unique for two reasons. One, Peter is managing the entire nursery process himself with casual seasonal help. He grafts the trees, responds to emails, does the taxes, orders and start the seeds. The second reason we're unique is that we both produce plants and we sell plants. That might not sound strange but most nurseries these days are specialised into just production/wholesale outfits or else resale/retail businesses. This combination of factors allow us to offer a huge diversity highly curated plants. Everything we sell Peter is personally creating or specifically seeking out. You'll see it in the catalogue!
My last 20 years of life have been focused on skill development. All of this learning has been directed at growing the farm and growing the business. Logging, milling, building, fencing, amending, planting, cultivating, irrigating, tinkering, repairing, husbanding, hunting and processing. You name the country skill and it has been learned and practiced around here. The future for me is diverging into other planes: the esoteric internal, the development of community in the face of restrictive laws and cultural individualism, and more time crafting in the shop. Just have to, ah. build the shop first...
We started the TreeEater Project with our son, Peter, in 2004, with 40 acres of mostly forest and little or no infrastructure. Our vision has evolved to embrace the magic of food trees, the importance of food security, and the grandeur of the forest that surrounds us. As the world confronts the climate crisis and the loss of biodiversity, not to mention the litany of other issues, we are working hard to steward a thriving, multi-generational, collaborative enterprise - committed to sustaining harmonious relationships between people, land, trees and animals.
Robert is a museum scholar/practitioner and Priscilla is a potter and art teacher. Together, we provide resources, perspective, and commitment to the well-being of this 21 st century enterprise.