A Living Laboratory · Shenandoah Valley, Virginia
Cracking the code on ‘beyond organic’ fruit in the Mid-Atlantic
Hi, I’m Trevor Piersol. I grow perennial fruits, nuts, and berries in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley — more than 40 species and 200 cultivars — and I’m working out how to grow them for maximum flavor and nutrition without conventional sprays. Follow along as I share what I learn each season!
The newsletter
Follow the journey
Seasonal updates from the farm and results from our ongoing research and experimentation.
Also coming soon, the launch of our nursery! As cultivars prove themselves in our trials, we’ll propagate them and offer them for sale — so you will have access to our favorite tasting and most resilient selections. Subscribe to be the first to hear when plant sales open!
Sign-up bonus: What We’re Growing
You’ll also get my complete planting record after eight seasons — every species and cultivar in the ground, what’s done well, what I’m working on growing better, and what I probably won’t plant again.
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What I’m working on
Healthy plants instead of harmful and costly sprays
The idea is simple enough — to naturally boost the health of our plants so that they can thrive on their own without chemical intervention. This approach, pioneered by Michael Phillips, Nigel Palmer, John Kempf and many others, combines a focus on soil health with the use of holistic, immune-boosting sprays.
Our aim is to synthesize the latest research and techniques in this evolving field and methodically test them out in our orchard, season after season. I’ll keep you posted on the on-farm experiments we are running and what our results are so we can learn together as a growing community.
Growing in our orchard
The farm
About Wild Rose Orchard
Wild Rose Orchard is a 12-acre farm in Mount Sidney, Virginia, with about six acres in production — a food forest, agroforestry plantings, two high tunnels, a number of experimental plots, and a small nursery. It’s also our home. We live in the middle of it, and the orchard is part of the daily rhythm here.
We moved here in 2018, when the place was a blank slate of open horse pasture. We quickly got to work planting as many promising cultivars of edible perennials as we could get our hands on, and the farm now holds more than 40 fruit and nut species and over 200 cultivars.
The underlying goal hasn’t changed: to unite the wild and the cultivated. We’re working toward a thriving ecosystem of perennial plants that feeds our bellies and our souls, and leaves the land healthier than we found it.
I started farming in 2012 growing vegetables and got pulled toward perennials almost right away — partly for their soil and ecosystem building benefits, and partly because, when it comes down to it, I’m a lazy farmer with an iffy back. I love things I only have to plant once!
Mostly though, it comes down to appetite. I’m a lover of all things sweet and tangy, and that passion has only grown watching my kids feast from the orchard daily, knowing that what they’re eating is packed with nutrients and free of chemicals.
In addition to operating Wild Rose Orchard, I am a co-founder of the Shenandoah Permaculture Institute and an active member of the North American Fruit Explorers (NAFEX) and the Virginia Association for Biological Farming (VABF).
The book
Mulberries in the Rain
I wrote it with Ryan Blosser, my co-founder at the Shenandoah Permaculture Institute. It’s stories about plants and the relationships we build with them — plus a working introduction to food forests, the framework we use to set up an orchard, and growing notes on some of our favorite perennials.