v one Rock Hill woman takes a different approach to her land, working with nature to help it thrive.

Carolina Impact's Dara Khalid and videographer Russ Hunsinger introduce us to a woman cultivating more than crops.

(intense music) (upbeat music) - [Dara] We've all got to eat, right?

- We're going to talk about a guild, which is a collection of plants that support our main focus, which is going to be the blueberry bush today.

- [Dara] Why not grow it yourself?

- These are romas.

- [Dara] Here at Greenwood Acres in Rock Hill, South Carolina, owner Keisha Hensley teaches people a different way to grow what they eat, one where nature does most of the work.

- A permaculture farm, it uses principles of sustainability, energy efficiency, and regenerative farming.

You just basically use nature to support each other in order to grow as systems and they sustain themselves.

- [Dara] Some plants feed the soil, others attract pollinators, and some luring insects that eat the critters, Keisha doesn't want around.

- You attract bugs in that kills those pests, so that keeps you from having to use any kind of pesticides, any kind of herbicides on any of your plants.

So it's kind of like a team protecting the peach tree.

(upbeat music) - [Dara] She even gives the pests their own food to munch on.

- The leaf-footed bugs, they are attracted to the sorghum.

They're all over them.

And so if I have them feasting on the sorghum, then they're not going to be feasting on my tomatoes.

- [Dara] Sorghum is a type of grass grown mainly for its edible seeds, and Keisha uses it to create a trap crop where you sacrifice one plant to protect another.

This is just one of the lessons Keisha passes along.

- With all of the recalls of our food and all of the dangers out there, I thought it would be great to learn about how to, you know, grow my own food and what that would look like.

- [Dara] Francina Tillman calls herself a novice gardener.

Kirsten Barrington-Hughes has more experience, but says there's always more she can learn.

- I learned already so much from Keisha today.

When you're learning from other people that have proven success, it's just so much better.

(water splashing) - [Dara] Keisha's message, it doesn't take dozens of acres to start.

- You do not need to have a lot of space in order to be able to sustain yourself, your neighbors, your community.

(upbeat music) - [Dara] Her three acres work like one big cycle.

Food scraps from the commercial kitchen turn into compost.

Compost feeds the soil, and Keisha uses a no-till method to disturb that soil as little as possible.

- [Keisha] When you till, it messes up the microbiology and there are all those good worms, all the good microbes and everything like that, so it's better to build the soil up as opposed to digging into it.

- [Dara] Instead of tilling, she uses materials like cardboard and wood chips on top of the ground to suppress weeds and build the soil below.

(sheep bleating) - Hello, guy.

- [Dara] Even the farm next door plays a role.

- We have some of our sheep here in the background that are grazing her land and fertilizing, then they'll move back over to ours.

- [Dara] Baker farm owner, Sarah Lowrance, is also part of the reason Greenwood Acres exists.

Keisha met Sarah while selling chow-chow at an ag and art event.

Later, Sarah sold Keisha and her husband Ray their property.

(gentle music) The couple designed and built a multi-generational home with space for their daughter, Keisha's aging father, and a commercial kitchen for the business that helped launch this entire journey.

- Chow-chow is mixed vegetables cooked in a sweet and tangy brine.

It's a condiment that has deep southern history.

- [Dara] Keisha's company, Mother's Homemade, grew from farmers' markets to local stores and restaurants.

But for her, making chow-chow is also about preserving something she fears we're losing.

- People aren't cooking like they were before.

People aren't canning and preserving food like they did before.

So just like languages that people don't use them, they die.

Also, foods will die.

- [Dara] She calls it a dying food culture.

Around the farm, she grows less common crops like American groundnuts, perennial collards and kale, and even cucumbers that look like lemons.

(gentle music) While Keisha was building something designed to last for generations- - There we go.

- [Dara] She learned her own future could look very different than expected.

- I got diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and that was literally in the middle of selling a piece of property to buy this property, to stockpile chow-chow, build out this place that all happened at that time.

- [Dara] Multiple sclerosis or MS is a chronic disease that affects the central nervous system.

For Keisha, the diagnosis came when she and her family were already taking one of the biggest leaps of their lives.

- It was one of these like, "Well, I'm not going to die.

I can work with it, so all right, let's just, let's do what we need to do."

- [Dara] Nearly three years later, she refuses to let the diagnosis define what she can build.

- My attitude is, "Well, if I got to walk with a cane, I'm going to put a skull head on it and I'm going to bedazzle it and put jewels on it (laughs) and just make the best of it."

- [Dara] Her husband has seen her determination.

- Extremely proud.

She works incredibly hard every day in all of the plants, all of the produce, you know, all of the science that goes behind it.

It's just amazing.

(gentle music) - [Dara] Whether it's a diagnosis, a business idea, or simply growing your first plant.

- I hope they take away inspiration and a can-do attitude.

(laughs) - [Dara] Keisha wants people to leave Greenwood Acres believing their dreams can blossom too.

For Carolina Impact, I'm Dara Khaalid.