Author Archives: Biologicalenrichment

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About Biologicalenrichment

I started a farm and nursery in the early 1980’s called Oikos Tree Crops. It was once a 13 acre pasture. Today it is a forest rich in food producing plants. I am dedicated to finding, preserving, creating and disseminating a wide variety of food plants via seeds that I harvest at my farm. I explore new plants and healthy ways to raise them. I focus on my seed repository while providing seeds to others that wish to follow my bold experiment in some way or form. My farm is one of the oldest and most diverse maintained tree crop plantings in the U.S. using many plants from around the world as a form of global agroforestry applied at a local level. Every plant grown on my farm is grown from seeds. I use the tree crop philosophy as a means to expand the use of perennial, woody tree and shrub crops raised from seed without the use of chemical and high energy inputs.The two story agriculture is alive and well at Oikos Tree Crops. This blog highlights ecological enrichment as a means to improve human health and raise awareness of the possibilities of creating a healthy earth and a wealthy farmer. My story is told by describing my 50 years of farming and life experiences surrounding agriculture filled with my love of nature and my constant search for a greater diversity beyond the cultivar on a global stage.

The Species Pear Balancing Act On the Move

If you were to take a peak into the secret life of pears, you will find treasures hidden in places that are not easily accesible. These are not “escaped” pears but subspecies that someone in the taxonomic botanical world has … Continue reading →

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The Unstoppable Power of Bamboo

When I lived in town with my family, I had a jogging route part of which was on a brick road on a steep hill. On the corner was a beautifully landscaped home of many fruits and ornamentals including a … Continue reading →

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Paulownia: Grow Your Own Home-It Zooms

One of my first acquaintances in the tree crop arena was a research technician in the pharmaceutical industry.  He was very passionate about growing his own firewood. This was in an era when the hybrid-popular market was in full swing … Continue reading →

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Rediscovered Fruit: The Cornelian Cherry

On a camping trip when I was in high school I ate a bunch of bunchberries, Cornus canadensis. It is a common groundcover found in the northern woods of Michigan. The edible wild book that I had said they would … Continue reading →

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Wood is Good: American Chestnut

In my senior year in college, I was employed as a gardener for a home that was near a nature reserve in the city. From time to time, I would cross the street with a wheelbarrow full of spoiled apples harvested … Continue reading →

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Finding Mulberry: Morus rubra

I like mulberries and everything about them. It doesn’t matter what type they are. I made the selection Lavender Life red mulberry based on heavy fruit yields. It was not based on percentage of how much it may or may … Continue reading →

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Parking Lot to Forest: Going From Zero to Hero in Plant Diversity

In terms of establishing new perennial plants in my treeless pasture, my farm was a good testing ground for all these different methods I kept reading about from other growers in gardening and permaculture. I applied these ideas to my … Continue reading →

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Nana Beach Plum: It Lives in a Farmerless Field

Any species of fruit as it is found in ‘nature’ can be cultivated. Two years ago, I grew a wild tomato from the Everglades that produced a tomato the size of a pea. It tasted like a tomato but was … Continue reading →

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Random: Distribution of Plants Within an Orderly Structure

Random is Not That Random. We tend to think of forests as random sets of plants in a structured organized way. Things are not in rows. It is a mixed forest. We might think, “oh this is much more desirable … Continue reading →

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Flexibility and Stability: Integrating Opposite Values With the Wild Apple

When you grow an apple from seed (which I highly recommend) you will see the extremities of what is possible in terms of what the apple will look and taste like. If a crabapple tree is nearby, then there is … Continue reading →

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