Nuts & Bolts
Nursery
Co-Op is a cooperatively owned nursery with a radical vision of the future. We specialize in growing nut trees, fruit trees, and other edible perennial plants.
Nuts & Bolts Nursery is about enabling resilient, decentralized food production in ways that fight climate change, increase biodiversity, and promote social and economic equity. We are about encouraging grassroots community projects and empowering YOU to shape your environment in a way that supports you and all the other beings that you share a little slice of Earth with.
We believe that one part of a multi-part solution to climate change and inequality is the building of a decentralized and democratic food system.
Currently, our food is largely produced and controlled by a small number of gigantic corporations that use polluting, environmentally damaging, and inhumane practices to produce food that is largely damaging to our health, and then they keep it under lock and key, away from anyone who’s labor and contributions to society are not considered valuable by “The Market”. But we imagine a different system.
Our Vision
Imagine a world where every sidewalk was shaded by a canopy of nut trees and lined with a hedgerow of berries and herbs; every block had a forest garden full of apples and peaches and asparagus with chickens roaming free as they turn the compost; every yard producing vegetables for the homes, which are collectively-owned and democratically-managed by housing cooperatives. Imagine if the food you ate actually sequestered carbon in its production, rather than emitting it, and if the “farms” were actually hubs of biodiversity, rather than desolate monocultures. Imagine never having to go hungry because you live in an edible environment co-created with uncountable other beings, human and non-human, who help feed and support you. Imagine never feeling alone because the constant company of the birds, the bunnies, the butterflies, and the blossoms is always just footsteps away and there to comfort you.
Nuts & Bolts Nursery Co-Op hopes to help facilitate the creation of such a world by providing a diverse selection of resilient and adaptable edible perennial plants at an affordable cost. We hope to literally seed the world we want to see, and to empower others to share their visions with us so we can co-create a future that works for all. When you plant one of our trees or other perennials, you join in creating this future!
Nuts & Bolts Nursery believes in agency, both in the food system and in the workplace, which is why we are organized as a Worker Cooperative.
As of writing this, we have five worker-owners, Andy, Amanda, Connor, Jacob, and Merle. You can get to know us better on our Meet the Nuts page, but we’ll share a little bit of our story here:
The five of us all met while studying at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, PA and lived together in an intentional community called “Eco-House”. While there, Andy started a project to convert the lawn into a permaculture park, and the others quickly got involved and began growing the project. You can read more about that project here. Once everyone had graduated, and the Permaculture Park torch had been passed on, we all moved to Providence, RI. Once there, Andy discovered Revive the Roots in Smithfield (a really awesome group, definitely check them out!), and we formed a partnership with them so we could help support each other's missions, which are very much aligned. The space at Revive the Roots was the last piece of the puzzle, and with it, Nuts & Bolts Nursery Cooperative was born!