Peter Jackson on Natural Farming, Ecological Resilience, and the Magic of Minerals and Microbes

Over a span of nearly two decades, self-taught natural farmer Peter Jackson has transformed a plot of rural Washington land into a thriving, bountiful forest garden.  When his family first arrived on the land nearly twenty years ago, it contained only a few food-bearing plants: old heirloom apple trees, sickly pear trees, and Chinese plum trees with cherry-sized fruits. Today, the property is home to approximately three hundred fruit and nut trees, as well as assorted berry bushes, and Jackson isn’t finished yet. “I’m trying to get up to about 500 trees on the four and a half acres,” he says. In addition to his farming work, Jackson is the ...