At Okatee River Farms we take great pride and growing the best produce in our local area. Like many success stories there are many failures along the way and we would like to dedicate this page to give our full story and some of the history of the property this business was built on! 

 

Where it all began…

 

"When my great grandfather moved to the states from Warburg, Germany around 1820 he originally lived in New York but eventually found himself moving South and settled in Grahamville, South Carolina with his family, which is just outside Ridgeland. Around 1860, when his daughter got married, he built the house that sits on this property today as a wedding gift. At that time, what’s known as Riverbend, was also attached to the property. That section of land was mostly forestry and was used for turpentining. At the beginning of the 20th century the land was predominantly used for growing cotton. Around 1920 my grandmother began growing tomatoes and canning them at the cannery in Pritchardville, this was their primary source of income. In the early to mid 1950's my father planted a peach orchard to help provide another source of income to help with my college tuition. During the week me, a friend, and cousin, along with Henry and Lee Smalls kept the farm going by selling peaches to locals at a roadside stand across the highway from the orchards; local peddlers, and local grocery stores in Beaufort and Savannah. A hurricane uprooted the orchard in 1959. Fast forward a few decades the property was left to me following my parents passing in 1986. Circa 2010 my son Ben and his wife LaDonna started row crop farming with help of their children around the Florence area where we lived. Years of planting soy beans, sorghum, and corn got them through with the help of Ben’s primary full time job in the steel industry. In 2016, one of the toughest years for them while farming Hurricane Matthew came through causing a total loss of crops that year. Constantly thinking of better ways to make farming work for us we made the decision to move back to Okatie in 2018 to reestablish Okatee River Farms, formerly know as, “Okatie River Brand Produce.” There has has been hard work put into building this into what it is today. Make no mistake that aside from the hard work this family put into this farm it is the people of this community that decide to support us and it’s what allows us to continue growing! We thank each and every one of you and it is our mission to continue growing fresh produce and microgreens for this community for many years to come!”

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                                   -Wilson Sanders

                                      Property Owner

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