Josh Garrick figured he'd be dead by now — or at the very least back in jail.

If you'd asked him 10, even five, years ago, he'd have said the last place he expected to be at 28 was on a farm.

"Things work out funny like that," he says, a cigarette dangling from his lip as he trudges through the mud at A New Leaf Farm in Mount Hope.

It's a breezy day and, with the temperature finally hovering above zero, there's lots to do. The soil in the gardens needs turning and there are eggs to be collected. His first stop is the pig pen — the fence is still busted after the pigs broke out last week.

"Redneck innovation," he laughs, yelling over the chorus of chickens, ducks, guinea hens and turkeys roaming the grass.

Garrick first moved to his family's Chippewa Road West farm when he was 13. His mom, Cathy Ozols, had grown up there, back when it was Queensland dairy farm, and bought it after her father's death so it would stay in the family. She was happy to get Josh out of the city.

"We moved him to keep him out of trouble — ha!" she says. "It didn't work. Best laid plans, right?"

He hated country life and, at 16, he moved out, back to downtown Hamilton and then to London, Ont. where, at the top of his game, he was wholesaling cocaine and OxyContin — a "business" where he saw more than one friend killed and was in and out of jail.

But when he got out of jail for the last time three years ago, at 25, he decided he was done with getting in trouble.

"I went crazy. This farm … saved my life," Garrick says.

He didn't have a choice, at first. His mom had bailed him out and he had to live with her there as part of his release conditions. But, committed to learning the ropes, he did an internship at a farm in Plantagenet, Ont., that his mom says was visibly "life-changing."

Before he went to jail that last time, he'd enrolled in business administration at Mohawk College where he came up with a business plan for a farm as part of a school project — but he was arrested before he could finish the program.

But as he sat in a jail cell, he thought more about it. He even came up with a new name for the family farm — A New Leaf Farm.

"This was my new leaf," he explained, waving at the 97 acres surrounding him — and he hoped it could be for others too.

"Not necessarily just ex-criminals, just anyone who's having a rough time … there's only so much to do here, but if we can (afford to take someone on) … it's a perfect place to relax and get your head straight."

He's not making nearly the same money he did dealing drugs.

"I'm looking to find peace more than I'm looking for money," he says with a shrug.

His mom agrees: "That summer (after Josh was released from jail) it was part of my therapy. It had been a hard several years … I had taken time off work and I spent the summer on the farm just getting back to myself."

Last year, a guy Josh knew who'd been having some trouble in Toronto came to work at the farm in exchange for a place to stay. And a student of Ozols (she is a student success specialist at Mohawk) worked there for a summer while working through a deep depression.

"I really just believe very strongly in the healing power of being at the farm," Ozols says.

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"When I moved back to the farm I always in the back of my head had thought 'Oh maybe we'll run a camp or something' … we are so blessed to have this place that we need to share it. And over the years, you know, I realized our personalities maybe don't suit running a kids' camp. But sharing it still remains high on our list."

David Lane, executive director of Hamilton's John Howard Society applauds the idea of helping those in need of a second chance.

"I don't know him but … I would think that's a good initiative no matter what scale it's on. If you're just providing an opportunity even for just one person, that matters," Lane says.

This year, the farm has been a refuge for Christina Adkin-Smithers and her three boys.

"All of my boys have a form of autism. There are very few places we get to go where we are invited back a second time," she says.

But A New Leaf was one of those places, and this summer, she and her family have partnered with Josh's family to run the gardens — sharing the earnings they bring in from farmers' markets.

On Monday, she smiles as she watches Josh show Jacob, 18, and Billy, 20, how to throw down hay for the pigs and move cattle.

"I don't care what your past is," she says. "If you have a good heart, you have a good heart. Josh has a good heart … my son has had a full-on freakout and Josh still asks 'so when are you coming back next'?"

Selling their produce at the markets is one of Garrick's favourite parts of being a farmer — though even he laughs at the idea of an ex-con selling homemade preserves at the Ancaster Farmers Market.

He's a big guy, with big tattoos — when his head's shaved you can see the literal scars from his past, he says. He's open with customers about his story and says people have been nothing but supportive. He also volunteers with Liberty for Youth as a mentor for at-risk youth — a program he himself utilized just a few years ago.

Executive director Frederick Dryden praises Garrick for his turnaround and for sticking around to help other kids. He also praises Ozols, for being so committed to seeing her son succeed.

"It was an amazing journey to see him evolve and embrace a whole different way of life," she says. "I look at him now when he's all dressed up in his farming gear and I see my dad. Even in the way he moves and the way he talks, it's very cool."