Nathan smiling with his bantam rooster under the trees — Nathan Story — founder
Missouri grower · Mizzou CAFNR alumnus · husband & father of two

Meet the grower.

I’m a husband, father of two, and a grower in Missouri.

I hold a B.S. in Agricultural Systems Technology from the University of Missouri’s College of Agriculture, Food & Natural Resources, but most of what fills this site I learned the slower way, one season at a time.

Nothing here is planted in rows. The land is a food forest: fruit trees overhead, elderberry and comfrey beneath, walking onions wandering wherever they please, and my barnyard-mix flock patrolling the understory. More than 30 cultivars, arranged the way a woodland arranges itself: in layers.

There’s always something mid-experiment out here, like fig cuttings rooting in totes of sand or a bench of seedlings waiting on the frost date. Never a shortage of projects or ideas to see how nature interacts with itself.

The plant library began as my own plant database, made to help me run the food forest. Now I'm hoping others who visit the storythymefarms website can find the information, art, or inspiration they are looking for.

“And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us,
And establish the work of our hands for us;
Yes, establish the work of our hands.”— Psalm 90:17 (NKJV)

Young fruit trees rising through the layered food forest — The food forest

A harvest bowl of tomatoes, squash and cucumbers ringed by the flock's eggs — An August morning's haul

A flowering rhubarb crown growing beneath a multi-grafted cocktail fruit tree — Rhubarb under the cocktail tree

A young peach tree underplanted with a guild of companions — The peach guild

Elderberry clusters piled with squash, corn and eggplant from the same picking — Elderberry, by the armful

Grapevines trained along the arbor wire — The grape arbor

Green figs ripening on the branch — Figs, zone 6

The laying flock inside the covered run — The flock

A hand-tied bouquet of zinnias and sunflowers from the flower patch — Zinnias by the fistful

Maturing fruit trees through the food forest — Among the fruit trees

A cluster of Egyptian walking onion bulbils — Walking-onion bulbils

Pink yarrow flowering in the herb layer — Yarrow in the herb layer

Grown outside — at home on your wall.

Browse the prints Explore the plant library