Eat more trees

Editor’s Note: Keenan Gruver is the founder and director of Known Grove Sacred Land Stewardship, an organization that works to bring ecological restoration and native planting into an accessible nonprofit model. His areas of expertise are in forest systems biology and regenerative agroforestry (farming with tree crops).

Among the other parts of his work, Keenan works with landholders to build a network of known native groves and their keepers. The organization’s primary focus is on bridging the gap between ecology and agriculture, particularly through the installation of native fruit and nut orchards. The following is a meditation on the present and the future of that work, and of a world torn between restorative and exploitative agricultural practices. 

My job requires that I live halfway in the future. This future spans a minimum of 10 years, but more often I must travel across the centuries and build my temporal outpost in the boughs of oak trees I have not yet planted. 

I drink warm hickory milk (kanuchi) with our grandchildren’s grandchildren and their eyes do not reflect my aching sadness and fear. They smile lightly as we walk amongst multi-tiered forest gardens that produce a bounty they have never known a life without, a bounty they share with neighbors, squirrels and deer because there is no thought of ownership over fruit. Our grandchildren’s grandchildren do not know of fences or profits, and I do not wish to tell them. 

This split life also means that my heart breaks daily. Every time I return and find the future has not already been built, I am reminded that our present has been cut back and thousands of years of progress has been sacrificed to blue grass lawns, monoculture plantations, coal mines and extracted hayfields. I feel a heaviness in my chest and an overwhelming need to sleep, sleep, sleep until the future is present and the war on greed has long since been won. 

I know so astutely that exploitation is an addiction with many relapses on the path to recovery, and sustainable food systems take generations to establish. It burdens me without end that these generations do not extend into the past century and that our children must wait for trees to grow. No child should have to wait for trees to grow. 

When I am at risk of being lost in time, I often find myself settling into the comfortable pace of the common persimmon tree, Diospyros virginiana. Diospyros begins producing fruit around seven years after seedling and continues producing greater harvests until its peak at sixty years—just in time for my neighbor’s grandchildren to perfect the recipe for their famous jellied preserves. After a full century of gifts, Diospyros begins producing their ebony core as they enjoy their final few decades of retirement, ready to share their subtle wisdom in the sharps and flats of piano keys that will speak through generations more. 

I wish one day to hear their music before I pass and carry the notes to the eternal orchards of the ancestors of this land. I will sing to them “Listen! The songs still echo! We had lost our way but they will remember how to play. The children will hear what the persimmon has to say!” 

The hardest days are when I travel to the deep futures of sweet oak orchards (Quercus muehlenbergii x bicolor) and black walnut groves (Juglans nigra). These places have known centuries of love and each tree has stood for two hundred years or more. In that future, they are just now reaching the peak of their gift giving and a single acre will provide for the needs of two dozen people. Elders who have tended to the groves their entire lives are laid to rest amongst the roots and remembered with gratitude each harvest. Though their bodies have gone, still they bring us wisdom and love. 

In that future, meditative hazelnut labyrinths trail off from the orchard’s edge and beds of hopniss (Apios americana) dot the understory. Familial clusters of paw paw trees (Asimina triloba) grow happily in the dappled shade of the sacred oaks, fed by wine capped mulch (Stropharia) and logs bursting with oyster mushrooms (Pleurotus). The serviceberries (Amalanchier) find their home at the grove’s edge and speak of lazy summers weaving willow baskets ready to be filled with acorns and hazelnuts come fall. 

I live in this future and yet I am here. I beg for land that can be given to our grandchildren’s grandchildren so they do not need to work and I am instead pushed to seek investment loans with a three year return. I feel a deep pain in my soul. I weep and I get back to work. 

I ask my community to help me build a world where we eat more trees. 

Keenan S. Gruver

Founder, Director, Dreamer

Known Grove Sacred Land Stewardship