A New Breed of Farmers are Doing It Their Way.

Oct. 12, 2021

4:14 p.m.

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The Team at River Organics, front row from left: Todd Blake, Rex Jones, Adrianne Joseph, Teresa Brown and Melanie Storrs. Back row, from left: Ryan Cross, Joshua West, Donny Gilman, Rick Welz and Austin Mueller. Photo by Corey Miller.

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With a staff of only six, everyone does everything at River Organics. Photo by Corey Miller.

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River Organics’ USDA-certified organic CBD products, including tinctures in 4 strengths and 5 flavors, with bath bombs, lip balm and hemp tea to come. Photo by Corey Miller.

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Jordon Podd, owner of Rigby Island Oyster Company, and one helper farm three million oysters a year in Mathews County. Photo by Corey Miller.

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Whether on the boat, in the water and on the dock, Jordan Podd spends his days ensuring that his Rigby Island oyster crop grows fat and happy. Photo by Corey Miller.

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Rigby Island oysters may be purchased through wolftrapoysters.com. Photo by Corey Miller.

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Maureen Anderson, owner of Tasha's Own, is at work on her kitchen table. Photo by Corey Miller.

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Each freshly-made bar of soap is wrapped in fabric before the label is added. Photo by Corey Miller.

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Anderson milks the goats in the morning and makes soap with the milk that night. Photo by Corey Miller.

Everyone knows Old MacDonald had a farm. Even so, he had nothing on the current wave of local farmers who have expanded the concept of farming to include some pretty interesting crops and products, none of which Old MacD could have imagined. No longer the last of a dying breed, these farmers have their eyes squarely on the future.

River Organics

Adrianne Joseph comes from a long line of health fanatics. As a child asking for snacks, she was given carrots and celery instead of chips or sweets.

A yoga practitioner all her life, Joseph grew up to be a wellness advocate who stayed active swimming, snorkeling, scuba diving and skiing. After a knee injury skiing, she tried CBD oil for the first time and came away impressed with its natural pain-relieving abilities.

That discovery dovetailed with her quest to find a viable crop for the organic farm she hoped to establish. Although she’d had the farmland for over 30 years, it had been farmed conventionally by a local farmer until 2016 when he chose to retire. It seemed only natural to ask her farm manager Donny Gilman if he wanted to farm the land, but she was clear that she wanted to farm organically. He agreed and River Organics in Gloucester was born.

Although Gilman had 25 years of experience growing ornamental plants at Ingleside Nurseries, he was new to organic growing and there are myriad requirements to being certified as such. It’s a three-year process that begins with the land’s being left fallow—except for cover crops—to improve the soil, and no pesticide usage. After that period, the farm began growing corn and soybeans, only to learn that non-GMO modified crops are at Mother Nature’s mercy. “Storms would just lay our corn down in the field because it wasn’t modified to stand up no matter what,” Joseph says of realizing that it wasn’t going to be financially viable to grow non-GMO crops. Although it’s more expensive and more labor intensive to farm organically, she was committed.

When the 2018 Farm Bill passed, Joseph saw an opportunity to get into hemp farming and make organic CBD products. Gilman began attending conferences to obtain the latest information on growing a crop new to River Organics. Finding the right hemp cultivar was essential because the plants would have to thrive in Virginia’s high heat and humidity. “This is our third crop and we’re learning a lot each time,” Joseph explains, gesturing out to a field of bushy, green hemp plants. “We now grow four different types of hemp, each with slightly different characteristics and properties.”

During harvesting season, they all carry cards stating that they work at a hemp farm in case they’re stopped by a policeman who notices a suspicious odor.

River Organics is vertically integrated, meaning that they grow, process and bottle with USDA organic certification at every level. “It’s a lot of record-keeping, but we’re very proud to be certified at all three levels,” Joseph says. Their organic products include massage oils and tinctures in four strengths and five flavors, as well as organic CBD tinctures for dogs, cats and horses. Bath bombs and lip balms are in the works. Even better, 1% of their total sales are donated to One Percent for the Planet, a nonprofit that supports vetted environmental organizations.

Tim Ulsaker, manager of the Mathews High School and Mobjack Rowing Association rowing programs, was a healthy, active 68-year-old when he woke up with a case of plantar fasciitis in his foot, causing pain and an awkward limp. Luckily for him, Joseph had gifted him with a bottle of River Organics CBD oil for Christmas, so he dug it out and began applying CBD (600 mg) massage oil two or three times a day, while using the 900 mg tincture once a day. “My treatment with CBD oil and the tincture brought the pain under control fairly fast and it only occasionally surfaces as a manageable bruised feeling under my heel,” Ulsaker says. He found the CBD oil also helpful with overuse pain in his hands and toenail fungus. “It’s a great natural remedy that’s worth trying and I know it’s a pure organic product with no unknown chemicals or unpredictable side effects.”

That’s exactly what appealed to Teresa Brown, the newest member of River Organics, about joining the team. “We’re helping people and animals to be well,” she says. “And we’re doing it with the highest-quality wellness products we can make.”

River Organics uses CBD-dominant strains because there’s a legal limit to how much THC—the psychoactive compound in cannabis that makes the user feel high—can be present in dry hemp. “It’s very controlled in Virginia,” she says, explaining that CBD is short for cannabidiol and is believed to work naturally in promoting overall health. The Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services makes unannounced visits to hemp farms to take samples for testing and if the hemp registers as over 0.3% THC, the entire crop is burned. “Our strain is so low in THC that you could smoke my entire field and all you’d get is a sore throat,” Joseph jokes.

With a staff of only six, everyone does everything at River Organics and that includes trying each new product themselves. And because of their certification as organic, every ingredient, not just the hemp, must by law be organic as well. Melanie Storrs, packaging & fulfillment coordinator, appreciates the collaborative nature of creating new products, including recent forays into edibles such as CBD-laced chocolates, cocktail sauce and mignonette. “We get to create, and my job is to figure out what we should make,” Storrs says. “We’ve come up with a few products that we now carry and that makes me feel part of a team.” But as the mother of a 13-year-old, she also takes her fair share of ribbing. “He’ll tell me, no, Mom, I will not go to the farm with you while you water your weed products,” she says with a laugh.

Walk into the processing room and the aroma could take you back to youthful partying. Hemp may not get you high, but it smells an awful lot like the stuff that does. “Our clothes will reek during harvest time,” Gilman, the voice of experience, says. “The smell gets intense, especially when the resin gets on you.” Production specialist Rex Jones agrees, saying that their cars begin smelling like it, while operations manager Ryan Cross adds, “But after a while you get immune to the smell.”

River Organics are available at riverorganics.com and:

Rigby Island Oyster Company

If there’s a typical path to becoming an oyster farmer, Jordan Podd didn’t take it. Granted, he’s lived on the water his entire life and had kayaks and canoes since he was a pre-teen. But after high school, his brother Jason hooked him up with a job doing asbestos abatement and lead remediation. When Jason got into working on the ghost fleet ships in the James River, Podd joined him salvaging barges. After an unexpected oil spill, Podd left the salvage business and became a commercial diver, mostly doing bridge repair work from Connecticut to Florida. Eventually, he blew his back out and needed surgery. “And that’s how I got into the marine industry,” he laughs.

Once he returned to Mathews County, he reconnected with his high school sweetheart who was recently divorced. After they started seeing each other again in 2015, the woman who’d been his first girlfriend became his wife. Meanwhile, he was eager to earn a living on the water and he knew there was money in the oyster business. As it turned out, his father-in-law had oyster grounds in Hudgins, so Podd began renting a covered outdoor space at nearby Sea Farms to grow his own oysters, dubbing his operation Rigby Island Oysters. “I help his two workers when they need it and he’s happy I’m around,” Podd says of Sea Farms’ owner. “Eventually, I’d like to buy the place I’m renting.”

All his equipment has been fabricated with his brother’s help from scrapyard finds and repurposed, and that includes a barge that had been scrapped. Essential to farming oysters is a grader, which is necessary to separate the faster- and slower-growing oysters. Oysters are dropped in, and the half-inch specimens stay on the top level, the quarter-inch fall to the middle and the smallest drop to the third level. The problem was that new graders run about $12,000, which was out of reach for a new farmer, so he built his own using a recycled vibrator motor and aluminum. “Oysters take about a year and a half from start to market,” Podd says. “But if you keep everything thinned out, you can get oysters to market in ten months.”

The baby oysters are about 1 millimeter in size, meaning that a million and a half oyster seeds could fit in a red Solo cup. Podd’s are sourced from Oyster Seed Holdings, located directly across Milford Haven from his facility. “The babies are so small they’re like sand. I could get seed from elsewhere, but it has to be refrigerated and shipped and the shock of moving the babies from cold to warm water means you lose a lot,” he explains. “Even so, before the oysters get to 2 millimeters, you lose about 20%.”

In the two tanks he maintains, Podd raised a million and a half oysters this past spring, part of his annual average of 3 to 4 million. Which was fine until COVID hit and decimated the restaurant business. Podd knew he had to diversify. “With no demand for oysters on the half shell, we had to leave oysters in the water, and they got to be 4 and 5 inches across. Nobody wants to chew an oyster that big,” he says. “So, I started to sell all I had to shucking houses.” The shucking market wasn’t affected because shucked oysters can be smoked or canned for future eating. With restaurants rebounding, Podd now sells his oysters for half shell presentation exclusively to Rappahannock Oysters in Topping. With a salinity of 15%, they’re sold as Rochambeau oysters, brinier than sweet Rappahannocks, but not nearly as briny as the Olde Salts raised near Chincoteague.

Once the oysters are big enough, they’re encased in HDPE plastic bags made in France, two hundred to a bag, and placed along 130 acres on the shores of Rigby Island. Currently, he has 6,000 bags along Billups Creek, but he’s legally permitted to put up to 20,000 bags in the water. “I just got lucky because

I have one of the largest floating bag permits in Virginia,” he says. “That stretch of land is all in conservancy, so no one can build on it. That’s great because it means my bags aren’t in front of anyone’s houses or affecting their water view.” Not to mention that the bags help prevent shoreline erosion by acting as a breakwater.

Being good to the environment is a motivating factor in how Podd runs his business and farms his oysters. “The Bay provides my way of life, so I don’t want to do anything to hurt it,” he asserts. As for the best thing about his chosen occupation, “Helping the Bay and being out on the water. The worst thing is the heat.”

Because Rigby Island Oysters operates adjacent to—but separate from—Sea Farms, Podd’s farming operations have stayed pretty much under the radar. “Nobody believes I grew 3 million oysters last year because I sell exclusively to Rappahannock,” he laughs. “My Dad wasn’t a waterman and I haven’t been in the waterman industry very long, so people don’t know me.” Oyster farming is different than being a waterman, he explains, in that watermen are required to get a waterman’s card, similar to a license, while oyster farmers pay an oyster user fee and an aquaculture fee. Despite the distinction, Podd’s day also begins at 5am when he takes oysters from the water to decide which are ready for market.

With only one employee, albeit a dedicated and hard-working one, Podd has already decided that his next employee will be a machine. “I’d love to expand and be bigger, especially being more automated with harvesting,” he says. But after having decided that working the water would be the next chapter of his life, Podd also acknowledges that there’s more to life than the daily grind.

“Smaller operations can grow perfect half shell oysters with larger crews, but I don’t want that stress,” he admits with a smile. “If I can do 5 or 6 million oysters a year, that’s all the stress I need.”

Rigby Island oysters may be purchased through wolftrapoysters.com.

Tasha's Own

Maureen Anderson is used to being addressed by the wrong name. As the proprietor and force behind Tasha’s Own, she crafts exquisite goat’s milk soaps smelling of everything from lilacs to Guinness and sells them locally at farmers markets. Without even asking, people quite naturally presume that she’s Tasha and call her that.

As a child, Anderson’s daughter Mairin had skin and stomach issues, along with allergies. Seeking a solution to help her little one, Anderson decided to switch her to goat’s milk, prized for its digestibility. She bartered with a friend who made soap from Anderson’s goat’s milk, trading her milk for soap that cleared up Mairin’s skin. When the friend abandoned the soap-making business, she gave her recipe to Anderson. “Tasha was my very first goat. Then I got a male and there were lots of babies,” Anderson explains from the kitchen of her 1889 farmhouse in Toano. Over 400 baby goats have come along since Tasha joined the family.

If that sounds like a lot of goats over the years, Anderson doesn’t mind. “Goats are loving, loyal and beautiful to look at,” she says. “When I go out to milk them, they love on me. Plus, they produce an amazing amount of milk and I love that.” Among the 140 guests at Anderson’s outdoor birthday celebration in July was Poppy, a sweet little goat who just wanted to enjoy the party with everyone else.

That “everyone else” includes 25 colonies of bees, 190 chickens that produce 75-80 eggs a day and, at the moment, about 20 goats on a three-acre farm that Anderson bought three years ago. Prior to that, she raised her eight children on a sprawling 30-acre farm in Pungo where she had horses, sheep, goats, poultry, beehives and extensive gardens. “We shifted up here, just with fewer sheep and no horses,” Anderson explains with a laugh. “I love sheep and if I had my druthers, I’d have lots of sheep and only some goats.”

That said, she couldn’t be happier with her current setup. “I milk the goats in the morning and make soap with the milk that night,” she says, gesturing to trays of uncut soap and stacks of freshly labeled soaps. Because goat’s milk contains the enzyme caprylic acid, it’s known for its restorative qualities. In World War I, it was poured on open wounds to hasten healing. While many of the soap varieties are scented with essential oils, her unscented raw honey and oatmeal soap is the most popular, followed by lavender and lemon varieties.

Once the soaps are cut and wrapped, they’re moved upstairs to the light-filled soap room at the top of what was once the servants’ stairs. There, the soaps cure for six weeks before being taken to market. The pandemic brought a screeching halt to the Williamsburg Market—Anderson’s main outlet for 10 years. Never one to back down from a challenge, she pivoted by creating her own outdoor market on the front lawn of the farmhouse. Using the circular driveway, customers could drive in, point to what they wanted—soaps, eggs, honey—pay with a touchless system and have their purchases loaded into the back of their car. She netted $110 that first market day and although it was her sole income for the week, she realized she’d hit on a winning formula.

A year and a half later, her Toano Open Air Market has 26 regular vendors and five to 10 others who participate on alternating weeks. “We have a food truck and live music every week, plus pony rides and a petting zoo,” she says with satisfaction. Her daughter Ainslie O’Rourke and her husband, Colin, own the Virginia Bread Company and they’re regular participants at the market. “People love the market because it’s the first thing to happen in Toano in 150 years!” she quips.

Dreaming up the market is just the latest step in Anderson’s quest to live a self-sufficient life. A mother at 19, she was constantly creating, sewing and looking for her next project—“I was always a nest-builder”—but her goal was simply to provide for her children. Today, they range in age from 19 to 38 and she says they’re her best friends. “This was the perfect home because it had room for them, a big barn for the goats, a little garage for the chicken coop and enough space for the apiary.”

Into this idyllic setting was born a premature goat with no teeth whose mother wanted nothing to do with her. Since baby goats need feeding every two hours, Anderson moved the little one into the house and used a tube feeder to pour its mother’s warm milk down its throat. “I had just finished making a batch of elderflower soap when she was born, so we named her Elderflower,” Anderson says. Her dog, Ghitta, a white Great Pyrenees, took one look at the tiny white goat and took her for a puppy. Elderflower, meanwhile, tried looking under the dog for udders. “Ghitta raised Elderflower as her own,” Anderson recalls. “She became the sweetheart of the farm and the market and to this day, Elderflower is different from other goats. She’s one-third goat, one-third human and one-third Great Pyrenees.” Not to mention 100% adorable.

The bulk of Anderson’s business comes from the Williamsburg Market, the Toano Open Air Market and online sales. Additionally, she’s also the soap maker for Colonial Williamsburg, making soaps under their label with scents based on the apothecary gardens. Her soaps can be found in places as varied as Jamestown Feed and Seed and the Coast Guard PXes. In a nod to the explosion in beer’s popularity, she crafts soaps mixed with ales and beers from Legend Brewing and Aleworks, while Copper Fox Distillery’s whiskey and gin also make an appearance as soap.

Nothing is off limits—nettles, espresso, patchouli, sage, to name only a few—when it comes to inspiration for Tasha’s Own soaps. “I want to be known for making purposeful soap,” Anderson concludes. “I want my soaps to have purpose and something very unusual about them.” Mission accomplished.

tashasownherbarium.com I 757-918-4166