Homegrown Flowers at River Sun Farm in Statesville

by Candace Lagerhausen

Melinda Roberts and her husband Mike have a strong background in agriculture. After living in Asheville for a number of years, they made the decision to move back to Statesville and open River Sun Farm, an organic vegetable farm. “I wanted to teach my kids that you can grow food without pesticides”, Melinda said, “so my one stipulation was, if we were going to move back and do vegetables, that I would only do it organically”.

Though vegetables were their primary focus in the beginning, Melinda had always wanted to grow flowers. After learning how difficult it would be to run a small, organic vegetable farm, they made the switch to being primarily a cut flower farm. “I enjoy doing it”, Melinda said, “I don’t think it’s anything that I’ll ever grow weary of”. River Sun Farm supplies many of the local florists with flowers, and in the same way, pride themselves on sourcing as much as they can from local shops.