Steven is the caretaker of trees on the farm. Throughout the year, he has hiked the farm’s hillsides to prune and monitor the apple trees which scatter the holler; he’s spent hours in the greenhouse grafting new arrivals and planted a myriad of young trees around the perimeter of the farm and continues to check on them anytime he’s close by; he can name all the notable trees neighboring on the farm, and tell you whether he thinks they’ll fruit this year or not. From his special love for fruit- and nut-bearing trees, he got his nickname: Chestnut, his favorite tree.
This farming season is the second time Steven found himself at Against the Grain; he first was volunteering in 2015 as a college student interested in sustainability and transgressive ways of agriculture. He’s returned this year after graduating from Appalachian State and spent the years after that working at nurseries and tree farms from Iowa to Hawaii. From his studies, he developed an interest for trees’ specific function in an ecosystem, through which he hopes to find a middle-ground between the wilderness and agriculture to work in.
With his return to the farm, Steven came with these new ideas of “restoration agriculture”—a term he picked up from a book he read in college—and “perennializing” the food system: he calls chestnuts “corn on trees” for their source of carbohydrates. He wants to grow fruits and nuts that people haven’t heard of or haven’t thought of as a source of diet. By now Steven has imagined himself as the owner of a nursery, hoping to explore more.
"I love working with the vegetables, but with the trees it’s the long-term investment,” Steven said, when asked about his dream for a nursery. “It’s like the joy of security, like this thing will stay with me. It’s an intimate, long-term relationship, a relationship with the plant itself.”
On the farm, Steven holds a very easy-going, friendly presence. He cracks more jokes than any of the other apprentices, and his very distinct belly-laugh can be heard from across the farm. Having grown up close by in Wilkes county, and going to college locally, he has a lot of knowledge on the best local spots to jump in a river. As the summer wears on, Steven said he’s appreciating the farm as much more than a place of work, but one where he really likes to be. And with autumn on the horizon, he said learned a lot about how to stay present, even with another change in life imminent.