Crane Creek Growers: This Sonoma County Farm is Bringing Organic Flowers to the Farmers Market
Sheree Bishop, Communications Coordinator
May 9, 2025
On their multigeneration farm in central Sonoma County, the Turner family grows tulips, lilacs, peonies, dahlias, ranunculus, and more using organic growing practices. Every morning, they prepare bouquets to be sold at farmers markets all over the Bay Area, including the Ferry Plaza on Tuesdays. Compared to store-bought flowers, which are often grown with pesticides and mass-produced under poor working conditions, local farms like Crane Creek Growers offer sustainable blooms and handcrafted bouquets that last.
Making the Move from San Diego to San Francisco
Tom Turner first established his farm in San Diego, where he largely produced wholesale flowers and capitalized on a popular cut-flower industry until the peak of the Great Recession in 2008. Tom’s son, Jake, says that multiple factors came together that prompted their move from Southern to Northern California that year.
“My dad’s partner has some family up here, and they decided that they wanted a change of pace,” Jake says. Along with personal reasons, an economic downturn made San Diego’s flower farming community less profitable than it was before. Development companies purchased many flower farms, and in turn, local businesses and florists that once bought from local farmers began sourcing from overseas.
After settling in Penngrove, the family decided to purchase a seven-acre plot of land. With over 50 years of experience in flower farming, and with the help of his family, Tom cultivated five acres out of the seven into healthy farmland filled with organic flowers.
Though he’s been involved in the farm since childhood, Jake didn’t join the team full-time until 2020. “It’s always been a part of my life,” he says, “I was in the restaurant industry for a little while, but once COVID happened, I saw how essential farming really is. It reignited my interest in it.”
Along with purchasing organic soil from a local producer, Crane Creek also uses a range of methods to ensure that each flower grows in the best possible environment.
“We do grow in greenhouses, but we also grow outside. We also grow in shade houses. We have this big shade house that’s covered in Saran mesh. It still allows that cross breeze and keeps it cool inside. We use every bit of the land to our advantage,” Jake says.
In both the time Jake has spent around the farm and the decades his father has spent working in agriculture, they’ve used many different growing practices and found those required by California Certified Organic Farmers (CCOF) to be the most sustainable. Crane Creek Growers is committed to organic certification because it provides an important reassurance to regulars and first-time shoppers.
A Better Bouquet: Going Local Instead of Global
The US imports more cut flowers than any other country in the world, with over 1 billion shipments entering the US since the beginning of the year. A vast majority of imports come from the fast-moving market in Colombia, but this speedy production and cheap price come at a cost.
To maintain high levels of production, these large companies heavily use pesticides and fungicides to keep as many flowers as possible. The people who work the land in this industry suffer the health effects of constant exposure to fungicides and pesticides, along with other dangers of physical and repetitive work, like carpal tunnel, tendonitis, and other injuries. In addition to working up to 20 hours a day, many workers make only $290 per month, just above Colombia’s minimum wage.
In contrast, when you shop from local farms like Crane Creek Growers, your money goes directly into the pockets of family farmers who grew your bouquet using organic practices, rather than being pocketed by large corporations that use toxic chemicals at the expense of their employees and the environment.
Moreover, the difference between store-bought flowers and their locally grown counterparts is both their quality and their shelf life. “You’re lucky to get a week and a half of shelf life once it’s cut and in water. If you go to a grocery store, there’s a good chance that those flowers are already a few days old. That’s less time to enjoy them at your home. When you buy flowers fresh at the farmers market from us, they’re cut the day before,” Jake says.
Blooming in the Bay: Embracing the Farmers Market Community
In the last 25 years, Crane Creek Growers has been at farmers markets across California in San Diego, Los Angeles, Larkspur, Berkeley, Marin, and Oakland, and now, the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market. For Jake, the farmers market community has been a resource in finding people to hire through word-of-mouth, and in building deep relationships with other local farmers and food makers in the Bay Area.
“We know a couple of the vendors who are already at the Ferry Plaza on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. It’s a lot of the same people that we’ve been friends with for a long time, and we’re thrilled to make some new friends, and looking forward to doing more markets and having fun all year,” Jake says.
At the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market on Tuesdays, farmers market shoppers can pick up freshly cut, organic flowers in bouquets of all sizes, from small mason jars perfect for a floral side table decoration, to large wrapped bouquets perfect for decorating your home or celebrating your loved ones.
“I pick a couple of really pretty blooms as feature pieces. You have a nice, big ranunculus, or a big tulip, lily, or peony. Then, it’s good to get a little foliage in there, maybe some eucalyptus, lepidium, some baby’s breath, or some chamomile. Then there’s some cute filler flowers like Sweet William and Alstroemeria,” Jake says. “You start with the features, throw in a little greenery, then add some filler, and before you know it, you’ve got a beautiful bouquet.”
Visit Crane Creek Growers on Tuesdays at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market. See a full list of our farms that grow flowers and our flower seasonality chart.
Topics: Farmers, Farmers market, Flowers/trees, Organic