Fresh Start

When Steven first became interested in sustainable farming and decided to start the micro-farming project here at Riverfarm, our education began with a bang.

We had taken a trip to South Georgia, where Steven met a brilliant young man named Daron Joffe, and learned from him about biodynamic/organic farming. Farmer D is one of those charmingly quiet and unassuming people whose accomplishments are beyond impressive. He's the founder and president of Farmer D Organics- please check out his website, it's fantastic, and very inspirational.

Anyway, with Farmer D's help, New Farmer Steve was able to hook up with the right people in our area to help him get started restoring the soil at our site biodynamically, and Daron sent us our first farm manager, Ben Walter, who we took to right away.

During these first weeks, Steven discovered that although there were many people in our area who were dedicated to farming organically, they were finding it time consuming to locate all the different organic products they needed- they were having to buy soil supplements, test kits, ferlilizers, pest controlling agents and livestock feeds and supplies from several different sources, and this could be frustrating.

So Farmer Steve put together a list of products and founded Fresh Start Grower's Supply, which has developed a healthy early customer base and continues to grow in a very satisfying way. The website is working nicely to allow people to shop online, and we're adding educational content in the form of short videos- Steven has interviewed several people who are prominent in the world of promoting local foods and sustainable gardening. You might want to check it out if you're looking for particular products or information.