Our Story
Taproot Nursery began in 2015 with the purchase of an eleven acre plot of wooded land Weybridge, VT. We started with the goal of building a homestead and food forest, but soon had broader-reaching goals for the land. While building our home and barn we also gained experience growing trees and perennials, building soil, saving seed, and composting. Since most trees and plants from conventional nurseries were cost prohibitive, we had a strong incentive to learn propagation from seeds, cuttings, and divisions.
We built nursery beds full of rich, living soil, we learned from many mistakes, and eventually reached a point where we could grow our own bare root trees to plant out on our land. This allowed us to do plantings on a larger scale and at a fraction of the cost.
Our goal at Taproot Nursery is to provide people with the tools to do what we did. 2022 marks our first year offering trees for sale. Initially we are focusing on bare root trees, mostly hybrid hazelnuts and hybrid chestnuts. In the future we plan to offer a full spectrum of affordable options from root divisions to cuttings, and eventually seeds.
Soil health comes first
We believe in the power of living soil to sequester carbon and grow strong, resilient plants. We’ve spent years building soil in our nursery beds and garden spaces using compost tea, biochar, manure, wood chips and living plants. We never use synthetic fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides or tillage.
Seed sources matter
We are currently growing mother trees and plants that will provide us with seeds and cloning material, but at the moment we rely on others for our seed. We take our seed sources seriously. Good seeds can come from unexpected places and we cast a broad net. Our seeds are sourced from other nurseries similar to ours, from reputable seed companies large and small, wild sources from our area, the USDA GRIN program, and fellow seed enthusiasts.
What are we growing?
Diverse plant selection is important. When deciding what to grow in our food forest and nursery we draw inspiration from agroecology, permaculture design, traditional foodways and land management, perennial alternatives to annual crops, PFAF database, and our own research into useful plant allies. We are interested in multi-purpose species that are easy to grow and adaptable.