Soil Shine Farm & Ferments

Happy sunny solstice!! And a gorgeous full moon to boot. See yall at .county.farmers.market tomorrow 8:30-12:30.

We’ll have a couple new products at market this week including Garlic Scape Paste and Seaweed Kraut. Come try a free sample!

Are y’all staying hydrated out there?? But are you really? Did you know if you’re out in the heat a lot, you need to drink MORE than water?💦

With this national heat wave coming this week, and who knows how many more this summer and through our lifetime, I just thought I’d do a little PSA on hydration. Your body NEEDS salt and minerals to get through being outside on these hot days!!

The last few years I have learned so much about electrolytes and hydration, and how drinks with these essential minerals are more useful than just drinking water alone. And electrolytes don’t need to be from a powder or purchased. We can all get in the good habits of pouring out the last bits of watermelon juice into our water bottles, or squeezing a bit of citrus 🍋‍🟩 in, or, my personal favorite, making herbal sun tea while you’re in the garden. Plants like tulsi, nettle, and lemon balm are loaded with minerals your body needs to assimilate hydration as it’s losing it. Oh and don’t get me started on milk—I LOVE milk as a snack-water-electrolyte combo!! Calcium, potassium, and magnesium anyone? 🙌

Other friendly drink additives include some of our products; pouring a splash of Lemon Dill Gut Shot or the Herbal Allergy Elixir into your water bottle are great ways to expand the hydration impact on your body. They are infused with all the great minerals from our vegetables including vitamin C, potassium, B6, magnesium, and all important salt.

How do you stay hydrated through the heat?? 🌞

Wow I didn’t know there was so much going on in town tomorrow!

I win awkward photo of the week! I was so excited about our homegrown Napa cabbage but for some reason could *not* find a way to capture its beauty with a camera. So this is what you get 😂 Trust me, they were big and beautiful and not at all awkward themselves!!

We’ll see you at the .county.farmers.market tomorrow morning 8:30-12:30! We’ll have a great selection of fermented goodies for you.

I’m feel like the Little Red Hen because I am SO proud of this product we’ve made truly from scratch from start to finish. Our Herbal Allergy Shot is an infused vinegar with honey (technically a shrub/oxymel) that is delicious, medicinal, and definitely as local as it gets.

We fermented the apple cider vinegar ourselves and infused it with herbs we’ve collected and grown throughout the year; you bet I felt on top of it harvesting goldenrod for this brew last August! We used lots of fresh spring herbs that are especially good for decongesting, boosting antihistamines, and fighting inflammation.

Now that it’s been infused for over a month and blended with top notch local honey from for an added herbal allergy-fighting power, the Allergy Shot is ready for the people.

Come try a sample tomorrow morning at the .county.farmers.market . It turned out even tastier than we expected and makes a great shrub addition to your water or refreshing summer mocktails!🐝🍯🍎🌸

Harvesting bok choy for kimchi and more this week. See your smiling faces at the .county.farmers.market tomorrow!

Tomorrow we’ll have our friend Skylar manning the booth while we are away for Memorial Day, so be nice to him for us!

Check out our sauerkraut with some local pork sausage Root Down food truck, located at Homeplace Beer Company tonight. Sounds yummy to me!

Did you know cucumber plants and roots *smell* like cucumbers? 🥒 It’s a trippy experience, kind of brings me back to cucumber-melon Bath and Body works hand lotion days!

We’ve been throwing ourselves in the farm this week trying to get everything planted between rains. It’s been exhausting, but rewarding as we imagine hundreds of future !!

See yall at .county.farmers.market tomorrow morning!

We’ll be back at market this week, and we even have all 3 gut shots in stock. As the gut shot lovers know, there is a limited quantity!

See yall 8:30-12:30 Saturday at the new location for the .county.farmers.market ! Sorry again to those we disappointed last week.

For those who don’t know, Rocky lost his father last month very suddenly and tragically. We have a long road ahead of us with grief and cleaning. So while we hate to miss our farmers market customers, we just need to go visit our family this weekend.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Mother’s Day and gets to spend time with their families soon too!

In the meantime we are restocking Mountain Time Mercantile & tomorrow with a great selection of our ferments. And we’ll be back at the .county.farmers.market next week for Memorial Day weekend.

Happy Mother’s Day!

Lemon dill charcuterie anyone?? Our go-to grab-and-go-busy-weekday-lunch is usually crackers, cheese, kraut, and whatever other “char-cute” we can come up with, salami, olives, hummus, etc. It hits the spot every time!

Come get some for yourself tomorrow at the farmers market. Remember it’s at the new location, rain or shine. (It should be nice to walk around in the covered area if it does happen to rain) .county.farmers.market

This is the first week at the NEW location! For real this time

It's moving week!

We are actually, for real, having our next Yancey County Farmers Market at the Yancey County Community Resource Center on West Main Street in Downtown Burnsville!

🗓 This Saturday April 27th!

📍 Located on Swiss and Main across from Homeplace Beer Company and Hearth Glass & Gallery ... you can't miss it!

🚗🛻🏍 Parking is available at surrounding businesses and municipal lots. Look for the signs, and please take care to use crosswalks and be courteous when using our neighboring parking lots!

🐶🐶 There are No Dogs Allowed withing the market area! If your dog can be carried or in a stroller, that's fine. But please do not walk your dogs into the market! It's a much more congested space and we have to keep customer and vendor safety in mind. Thank you for your understanding!

We have 25 vendors lined up with all of your favorites!
Bring your knives for sharpening by Mark Langner at Yancey Sharpening! Bring your bags for shopping!

Root Down Farm will be there for the breakfast club! Market favorites like Soil Shine Farm & Ferments, Pink Boot Farms LLC, Five Pine Farm will also be there!

Fresh bread, handmade goods, local meats... you're not going to want to miss out!

See you at the Yancey County Farmers Market!

The hard times are over guys!! We have kraut and kimchi again! we were even out at home, and it was hard, let me tell ya 😅

See you at the .county.farmers.market tomorrow 8:30-12:30 at the OLD location. Sorry it’s confusing but the new site still isn’t set up yet.

In the next week we’ll be restocking our stores so stay tuned.

We’ll have these krauts along with turmeric paste, radish pickles, hot sauces, and gut shots tomorrow so come ready to get ferments back in your life.

The first Yancey County Farmers Market of the season will be Saturday April 13, and it will be at the new pavilion on West Main St across from Homeplace. How exciting!

We will NOT be attending the first market. We have been supporting a family member through illness the last couple months, and we took a break from kraut production. We will be back in the kitchen today and are trying to catch up so we can be at the market as soon as possible.

We hope to be there Saturday April 20, but check our socials before heading out to stock up on !

HUGE thank you to our community who helped us plant over 150 trees and shrubs this week! We had to reschedule to a weekday and I thought it would be sparse attendance, but everyone moved their stuff around for us. We have the best community. 🥹

We planted pretty much all native edible tree crops on these monster swales with the help of . They are a great resource to help farmers get more trees in their systems. Thanks Contour Lines.

We are moving our business in the direction of Agroforestry and perennial food production. Agroforestry is the incorporation of trees into farms, which have tons of ecosystem benefits including carbon capture, less soil disturbance, shade creation for animals and humans, runoff reduction, erosion control, habitat creation… I could go on for days. Trees are healing, and who doesn’t love fruit?

Here we planted persimmons, mulberries, apples, pawpaws, pears, elderberries, and a couple peaches and plums. More chestnuts and elderberries to come in another field.

Mmm I made some insanely good Turmeric-orange chicken this week and yall need to hear about it. Homegrown chicken, bell peppers, honey, and turmeric danced into our bellies with lots of full-mouthed expressions of pleasure!

I’ll tell you approximately how I made it, but I just kind of felt it out and I encourage you to do so, too.

🐔 Cube chicken breasts and mix in a bowl with some flour, salt and turmeric powder.
🫑 Sauté bell peppers, onions, and garlic (or try whatever veg you have on hand- broccoli, green beans, asparagus?)
🍳Add chicken and cook til no longer pink in the middle
🍯Meanwhile, boil some water and pour a bit into that nearly empty crystallized honey jar you’ve been waiting to scrape out. (about 1/4c honey + 1/4c water)
🍯Once your chicken and veg are cooked, pour the honey water on. Let it steam and reduce for a minute or two more.
🧄Turn off heat
🫙Add a few spoonfuls of our Fermented Turmeric paste and Minced Ginger at the very end to retain some of the probiotics.
🍊Last, Zest some orange peel to preserve the fragrant oils
🍚Serve over rice and overreact to what an amazing chef you are! 👩‍🍳

Holy cow I’m telling yall, this was a show stopping weeknight meal. Tasted better than any food you could even buy in my town (no offense, love you Burnsville.)

And it’s a great way to get more antioxidant superfood into your belly!

We just restocked Turmeric Paste at and . And just a few more weeks till the .county.farmers.market starts again!

Inspired by .everyday thanks for the inspo, love!!

Very exciting announcement 🌟 After 5 years in business, we finally have a website!

We’ve been avoiding it so long because we don’t do online sales, but despite the procrastination I actually really enjoyed building this site. It was fun to take pictures, articulate our values, and reflect on the past, present, and future of this business.

We hope this site will clarify where to find our products, educate folks about fermentation, and keep our community abreast of our upcoming farm projects! And ~no~ we still don’t ship because we’re a local food business that prioritizes feeding our neighbors with *locally grown* food.

The address is www.soilshinefarm.com but I’ll put the link 🔗 in our bio~ gosh it just feels fancy saying that!

Big thanks to for the web design, April Steffler for the photos, and for a grant to fund this project 🙏

We love our fermented Minced Ginger as a convenient, ready-to-add ingredient in our favorite dishes. It’s even wonderful in tea. Saves us so much time peeling and chopping, plus it’s 100% local and organic ginger from our farm, so you know you are eating local year-round.

As of today, Minced Ginger is now available at three locations: and Be Natural Market in Boone.

I love it when convenience and quality overlap, don’t you?

Curtido always hits the spot 🙌 especially with avocado, beans and rice, or anything Latin.

I love getting my in at breakfast to get digestion off to a good start.

Remember to check our pinned post to find out where you can restock on yummy, locally grown ferments all winter!❄️

Hope everyone’s having a wonderful new year. We are grateful for the extra time to rest, be near family, and NOT have plans for a minute. It’s also a good time to catch up on computer work and make improvements to our business— to work “on” our business instead of “in” our business.

One of the things I’m excited about is this ad we’re putting in the Local Food Guide! If you’ve never picked up one of these guides, they’re a wonderful resource that lists , , restaurants, and grocers that carry local food, as well as agritourism, u picks, and more. Well worth the price of Free.99 so pick one up when you see them in print starting in the spring. (They’re available at places like the French broad Co-op, sometimes at farmers markets, etc.)

Hope everyone’s doing well!

We keep our stores stocked so you can keep your microbiome stocked! 🦠

But really, we strive to make our available to you as many weeks of the year as we can. We know you want to eat local, nutrient dense food year round, and ferments can play a critical role in the winter months.

These local retailers help us fill the gaps when the .county.farmers.market hibernates. Not to mention, they are all so unique and pleasant to shop at, we’re sure you’ll leave with more than Soil Shine products! At our deliveries we always leave with local goodies, artisan treats, and lately crafty holiday gifts.

While we do try to keep these shops in stock all winter, if you’re coming from a long way or want a specific product, it doesn’t hurt to call ahead. I’ll tag everyone below so you can find them.

Thanks for supporting our small family business through the scarcer months!

Mmm, love me a good salad. The best thing about krauts is they have a little built in dressing, just pour on the brine, add olive oil, and you’re good to go.

I’ve been craving lots of ferments and salads between all these rich food holidays. What are your favorite ways to use your kraut in the winter? 🍋

It was too cold and windy to farm / go to outdoor preschool today so we treated ourselves to a family day trip to Boone! 🥶 We restocked , Be Natural Market, , and in Bakersville.

Go support these unique local businesses, and treat YOURself to some awesome , , or ! Pro tip, local food makes great gifts for the folks in your life with *taste* 🤌

We 💜 you guys but sadly we are finished with the .county.farmers.market this year. We are missing this final week to attend the sustainable agriculture conference in Durham! So excited!

We will be starting every other week at the 11/15, 11/29, and 12/13. Catch us there and friends! We hope to finish the season strong with a great selection of all your favorite local !

Had a celebrity appearance in the garden this week from our friend Susana Lein! If you haven’t heard of her, she’s a legendary permaculture teacher, ecological farmer, and seed breeder of Salamander Springs Farm in Kentucky. I HIGHLY recommend her interview on the podcast No Till Market Gardener podcast where she explains her Fukuoka-esque no till grain production. It’s so inspiring.

We’re still picking cabbage and making kraut for y’all, but this is our LAST Saturday at the .county.farmers.market . We will be stocking our retailers through the winter of course, but this is your last chance to get our full selection in downtown Burnsville! (If you know you want a lot of something, please reach out to make sure we bring extra for you.)

Rumor has it we’ll be trying the on Wednesday through November & December too… check out socials to make sure we’ll be there.

And remember this Sunday is the wahoo!!!

We are so excited to see you at the Fermentation festival in Marshall this Sunday!!!!

This is hands down my favorite event of the year. There are so many amazing artisan food vendors and even free fermenting workshops. I love the folks that come, they’re always so curious and open minded, so we always try to make y’all some special small batches 🧪 🔬

Check out the page for more info!

Bottling some goodness for y’all on this lovely Friday afternoon ☀️

See you tomorrow at the .county.farmers.market 9-12:30! We’ll have another exceptional selection of fermented goodies for y’all: seasonal pickles, , , , and more

We’re so excited to eat a Pink Boot Farms LLC organic-fed turkey for our holiday! You could get one too if you act quickly!

I'm the only bird without Thanksgiving plans. DM me for details

Holy cow you guys. This amount of variety is blowing up our stand setup, im having to improvise to fit it all! All local, fermented, organic goodness!

The end of the season truly is our peak time for diversity as we hold onto the last flavors from summer, enter the fall vegetable season, and creep into winter preserves. The diversity of our products is reflective of the diversity of our gardens, where we strive to build soil, rotate crops, and diversify our soils microbiome as well as yours 🦠🪱

We love farming and love sharing these ferments with you all so we can keep doing it! Thanks for supporting our small business at the .county.farmers.market and in two weeks at the

Today we fermented some big things and some small things.

These are now happily souring away with their bacterial collaborators. Can’t wait to taste their earthy, sweet complexity… they ferment so nicely!