ABOUT US
Our name Soil Shine represents our deep reverence for the soil. Our garden has mica-rich soil which makes your hands sparkle, which reminds us how magical it is to live in these mountains and get to garden here. The soil’s microbiome is deeply connected to our own microbiome, and we tend our soils using no till, organic, and biodynamic practices to make sure it’s as alive as possible, to make fermented products that are truly alive. (And we love Warren Haynes’ song Soul Shine.)
Meet the farmers
Rocky and Olivia Ramos
We deeply value sustainability and living as closely to the earth as possible, and hope that their farming career can bring others closer to the earth too.
Olivia found farming through an interest in healthy eating, cooking, and preventing food waste. She first experimented with fermentation in an attempt to preserve an abundant cucumber harvest at the Appalachian State Sustainable Development Farm. Though she would now consider that first batch of pickles an utter failure, she was hooked on their bubbly, wild flavor and has been improving her fermentation skills ever since.
Rocky loves food, cooking, family, and live music. He was attracted to farming because of the lifestyle it provided, working closely and spending time with his young family. He grew up outside of Atlanta in a tight-knit family, and an interest in learning to grow his own food led him to Western North Carolina.
Our Farm
Our land was formerly an abandoned boxwood farm, and we're busy restoring it using regenerative farming techniques like agroforestry, cover cropping, earthworks for water conservation, and biochar. We are establishing perennial crops like elderberries, apples, hazelnuts, chestnuts, persimmons, and more, to focus on resilience and long-term food security.
We established a large elderberry field in 2024 that's just coming into production. Elderberries have incredible nutritional and medicinal benefits and thrive in our area as a native plant.
We also have a field for ferment-ready vegetables like cabbage, cucumbers, and hot peppers. When we need more produce, we partner with the farmers at Seven Oaks Farm (Sunshine, NC), Oak Holler Farm (Marshall, NC), and R Farm (Weaverville, NC) to produce Certified Naturally Grown bok choy, cucumbers, cabbage, napa cabbage, carrots, radishes, and beets for us.
The quality of our products comes directly from the vitality of the soil, like our motto, “Living food from living soil.” We believe an intact soil microbiome produces food with the highest nutrition.
