Jill Gammons, Four Sisters Farm
Saturday, April 6, 2019, 10:30 am - 11:15 am
Stop by the CUESA Classroom for a hands-on activity highlighting the seasonal bounty of the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market, and featuring one of our market sellers.
Four Sisters Farm is known at farmers markets around the Bay Area for their organic kiwifruit, avocados, bouquets, and nutritious specialty greens like miner’s lettuce, amaranth, sorrel, and watercress. Over the decades, the farm has developed like a wild garden, undiscriminating of weeds, impervious to pests, and rich with more than three feet of organic topsoil—all the result of Jill’s parents’ hard work and cultivation.
In the late 1980s, Jill’s mom Nancy started growing and selling organic flowers at a time when organic flowers were an even newer concept than organic food. She has also mentored other women, who have gone on to start their own flower farming projects. When Jill was 16, she started working on the farm and enjoyed helping her mother with the flowers. She left the farm for several years to attend school, but she later returned to start her own flower project on the farm, while raising three children with her husband. Her three sisters have full-time jobs and families of their own, but they keep close ties. “I seem to be the one who is set to take over the farm, which I probably will because I know about agriculture and I’m interested in it,” says Jill.
All demos take place in the CUESA Classroom (under the tents in front of the Ferry Building) and are free to the public.