Carya Grove is a proposed sub-community within Bear Creek Community Land Trust (https://bearcreekcommunitylandtrust.org/) on current Bear Creek Community Land Trust member Tanner Radig’s 11 acre leasehold consisting of a mix of sloped and flatter hickory + oak woodland, savannah, and prairie. Right now it is just me (Tanner) along with occasional visitors/friends but I would like to find other folks to collaborate, live, and work with. I do not have strong set in stone ways on how I would like to go about this, but do have some vague ideas and am open to ideas and figuring it out along the way.
I run a plant nursery (Perennial Crops Nursery LLC) on the land and am slowly building off-grid infrastructure. So far there are two roads installed, selective tree clearing, a pond for swimming/fishing/habitat/gravity fed water to the plant nursery, and an in-progress cabin being built. It is off-grid in the sense of not having municipal water or electricity. I imagine a root-cellar, greenhouse, workshop, outdoor kitchen, seed/food processing building, office and other dwellings being build eventually.
I could imagine sharing space with up to 10 or so long-term communards as well as visitors, work-traders, education events, and part-timers. In this sub-community I am interested in possibly sharing a homestead (land, housing, infrastructure, gardens, equipment, vehicles, livestock, work, etc) communally/cooperatively.
We have really good neighbors at Bear Creek Community Land Trust, The White Rose Catholic Worker Farm, and Emberfield HeArt Collective Ecovillage. A 45 minute drive away is Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage, Sandhill Community Farm, and Red Earth Farms Community Land Trust.
The name, like everything is open to change. I had to decide a name to make a listing so I took a shot at it. Carya means nut. In botany it is the genus of hickory, which I feel very connected to, am passionate about growing, and shagbark hickory (Carya ovata) grows here well naturally. A grove is “a small wood, an orchard, a group of trees.”  Due to my current passion/focus being on developing long-term agroecological systems, the named seemed fitting/the best I could come up with.
Everything can change/evolve. Some main interests of mine are experimenting with and developing intensive agroecological food systems for sustenance, off-grid systems to meet needs with the land and each other, and co-creating a land-based egalitarian culture embracing commoning, cooperatives, and non-monetary modes of economic transactions within the community, aspiring interdependence. To aid in this, I am planning large plantings to trial many species + varieties + selections and maintain a germplasm repository for further propagation and slowly working on off-grid infrastructure.
Everything can change/evolve. Some main interests of mine are experimenting with and developing intensive agroecological food systems for sustenance, off-grid systems to meet needs with the land and each other, and co-creating a land-based egalitarian culture embracing commoning, cooperatives, and non-monetary modes of economic transactions within the community, aspiring interdependence. To aid in this, I am planning large plantings to trial many species + varieties + selections and maintain a germplasm repository for further propagation and slowly working on off-grid infrastructure.
Starting with a visit and building a relationship is where to start. From there we can figure things out depending on the situation and eventually ideally figure out more of a system once more are involved.
Please call, email or message Tanner Radig about your interest and timing.
The whole membership decides collectively.
Members contribute a percentage of income to community funds.
Monthly fees/dues: Yes (amount not specified)
Labor required: Yes
Members with pre-existing debt: Yes (some debt)
This can work many ways. I could imagine transitioning to be totally income-sharing, voluntary contributions, consensual expense sharing on a case by case basis, rent/work-trade for part-timers/residents etc. I’d like to figure out what makes sense based on the situation and strategize moving away from the monetary economy.
I am a member of Perennial Crops Nursery LLC that functions as a producer cooperative with two other members (one in Lafayette, TN at The Garden community, and one in Rock Island, IL) and that is how I make income. It’s possible for others to become members of this plant nursery business as well as other individual and or cooperative business ventures from the land.
Common House, Garden(s), Greenhouse(s), Vehicle Share, Library, Workshop, Outbuilding(s), Swimming pond or pool, Outdoor Kitchen, Large Scale Kitchen, Tractor & Farm Equipment, Stage or Auditorium, Fire pit, Swingsets & play areas, Recreational vehicles, Internet
Countryside locations with significant distance from urban centers.
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