Goldberry Grove is twenty acres of regenerative agroforestry above Summersville, West Virginia — seven acres of u-pick nuts, berries, and tree fruit; nine acres of mushrooms on hardwood logs; a medicinal understory under the canopy; and an open gate for anyone learning to farm like a forest. Educational hub first. Working farm always. JADAM-fermented soil. No synthetic anything. A plan that thinks in decades. Two years in, still figuring it out.
— Josh and Abigail
We farm twenty acres in the Appalachian foothills above the New River Gorge — about seven cleared for u-pick, nine wooded for mushrooms and the medicinal understory, the rest house, drive, and seminar yard. The central word in that sentence is forest. Goldberry is an educational farm first — a place to learn what regenerative agroforestry actually looks like on a working hillside in Appalachia.
The American Chestnut is our north star. Once the dominant tree of this forest, blighted to near-extinction a century ago, it carries the restoration story we're betting our soil on. Hybrid hazelnuts and black walnuts share that canopy. Underneath: pawpaw, persimmon, mulberry, serviceberry. Below that, the medicinal ginseng, goldenseal, ramps, black cohosh. And on hardwood logs in the woods, shiitake, lion's mane, oysters by the hundred. JADAM and Korean Natural Farming guide every input. The goal is a farm you can walk through and learn from.
Chestnuts in October, pawpaws in September, berries and tree fruit through summer. Bring a basket and an afternoon — we'll post dates the week before the gate opens.
See the season →Mushrooms · ~9 acresInoculated on hardwood logs under the canopy. Spring inoculation workshops. Wild-simulated medicinals along the woodland edge.
Inoculation workshop →Medicinal forest farmingWild-simulated in the wooded understory. Long horizons, slow returns, the way Appalachian herbalists worked these ridges.
Forest-farming walk →Foraging educationHalf-day seasonal walks led by Josh, Abigail, and guest herbalists from the Appalachian-foraging community.
Browse the walks →Goldberry is Abigail and Josh Dunbar (and Quasar, the Samoyed). Day-to-day, the orchard, mushroom yard, and seminar prep run with our farmhands George and Wesley — the two reasons the gate can stay open when there are workshops to host and rows still to weed. Family events on the land, harvest weekends, and the WWOOFers who pass through round out who you'll meet when you visit.
Read our story →We're building Goldberry as a place people come to learn what regenerative agroforestry actually looks like — not as theory, but as a working hillside you can walk. The American Chestnut restoration story anchors the mission; the u-pick, mushrooms, medicinal understory, and foraging walks are the curriculum.
The farm runs on soil regeneration, wind and water management, and biodiversity before yield. Long-term we'll bring livestock into the rotation when the trees are tall enough to share. The goal isn't to be the biggest farm in West Virginia. It's to be the most generous teacher of how to start one.
JADAM amendments, no synthetic fertilizer, organic-matter-led.
Mushroom yards and medicinal understory under existing canopy.
U-pick, seminars, foraging walks, and WWOOFers on the land.
When the trees are tall enough to share, the rotation expands.
We open the gate for u-pick weekends, seminars, foraging walks, and private gatherings. Most events run by appointment so we can actually walk the rows with you. Four ways in:
Chestnuts in October, pawpaws in September, berries and tree fruit through summer. The gate opens by appointment when something is actually ripe.
See the season →Seasonal farm-to-table dinners. Harvest weekends. JADAM fermentation workshops. We open the gate a few times a year for everyone — bring a friend and a flashlight.
Upcoming events →Mushroom inoculation. Foraging walks. Grafting in spring. KNF and JADAM deep-dives. Small groups, hands on the tools, on the land. Most run a half-day to a weekend.
Browse seminars →The lower hollow with a fire pit and a long table seats forty. Weddings, retreats, family reunions — the kind of gathering that wants hickory canopy overhead and no Wi-Fi.
Inquire →The advantage of working a small Appalachian farm is that we can change our minds in twenty-four hours. The disadvantage is that everything depends on whether we read the weather right. This year the chestnuts dropped by late September — three weeks ahead of last year — and the canopy-down rotation had to compress…
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