Four
Sisters Farm
Robin and Nancy Gammons moved in 1978 to what is now their
small (5-acre) diversified organic farm in the hills of Aromas,
California. While the first thing they did was to plant a
small hillside kiwi orchard in what had previously been marginal
pastureland, their first successful crop by far was children—four
girls in five years—hence the name “Four Sisters
Farm.”
The farm has been certified organic since 1987, at first
simply because certification was an effective marketing tool,
the Gammons say. But the couple has always farmed without
pesticide, herbicides, or synthetic fertilizers, their core
beliefs about good stewardship running deeper than any rubber
stamp. In these days of many players, they say, certification
serves to keep everyone honest. “I used to be naïve
enough to think everybody was going to do the right thing,
and what I’ve come to realize is we need these organizations
to make sure the right thing is done,” says Nancy Gammons,
who also manages the Watsonville Farmer’s Market.
“I believe really strongly in farmer’s markets,”
she says. “There has to be a venue for smaller growers.
People get to meet the growers and they get fresh food. It’s
probably the most positive cultural and spiritual experience
I’ve had in farming.”
Besides Kiwis—which Robin helped introduce to the area—the
Gammons also grow cut flowers, avocados, apples, herbs, and
specialty vegetables. They sell their crops directly to Bay
Area restaurants, health food stores, and, of course, farmer’s
markets.
“When we first got to this place we knew nothing about
farming,” Nancy Gammons says, describing borderline
growing conditions such as a sparse layer of topsoil. “We
now have about 28 inches of topsoil from working organic matter
back in and adding compost and everything else. It just goes
to show you that you can build topsoil. It just takes time.”
Nancy Gammons began her flower garden modestly, choosing
just 150 of her favorite varieties. Over the years she has
whittled that down to the 60 varieties that seem to do best
in her climate under organic conditions. Because industry
stem-length requirements don’t particularly jive with
her cultivating practices, Gammons sells the majority of her
flowers as mixed bouquets. If you ask her “Why organic
flowers?”, Gammons will get up on her soapbox (as she
did literally during the tour of her farm) and expound passionately—her
gentle voice somehow bringing more bearing to her convictions—
about the interconnected web of life and how it makes no sense
at all to poison any of its members.
As for weed control, “we’re pretty tolerant here,”
she says with a quick smile.
“Our philosophy has been to incorporate as many native
plants as possible. We’ve allowed the native vegetation
to stay. Our vision has been to leave it as much alone as
we possibly can, and that’s probably why we don’t
have a big pest problem here.
“We’re not the doers. We’re just kind of
putting an idea in place and then everything just kind of
comes in and does it with us and for us.”
While the Gammons’ children’s involvement in
the farm has been mixed over the years—some remain plugged
in; others have now moved on to pursue other passions—the
couple first took the leap of bringing in outside help by
taking on an apprentice. For the past 10 years, they’ve
had two full-time seasonal workers. “We don’t
like to say they work for us, they work with us and we’re
a good team, says Nancy Gammons. “It’s a big jump
economically but once you get going it gets easier.”
It’s been a long row to hoe (literally) raising four
children on what they can manage to eek out of 5 acres, but
the Gammons seem to have no regrets. “When we started
this we knew we’d never get rich, but we have a good
time and we love what we do,” says Nancy Gammons.
Home on the range
Joe Morris is not your ordinary cattle rancher, though in
full cowboy regalia he cuts a dashing figure straight out
of Bonanza. But once Morris opens his mouth and begins waxing
philosophical about his holistic approach to raising grassfed
beef on the San Juan Bautista ranch passed down from his grandfather,
all stereotypes fly out the barn door.
“What really sustains any civilization is its food
production system and the management of its soil and other
natural resources,” Morris tells the farm tour crown
gathered on this clear, crisp-but-comfortable California winter
day.
Every management decision made on the Baumgartner Ranch—and
other leased properties for a total 7,500 acres—has
to answer the questions: What would be the economic, ecological,
and social benefits of a specific course of action, Morris
says.
Like the decision to encourage the growth of wild perennial
grasses over more traditional annuals.
“Perennial grasses capture more solar energy, they
capture more water, they allow that water to move off the
land more slowly, they provide for excellent rangeland in
the fall,” Morris says, just warming up. “Perennial
grasses are a great indicator of biological diversity, they
live a lot longer, they are more drought tolerant.”
Holistic Resource Management recognizes six tools, says Morris:
technology, rest (or lack of any disturbance), grazing, animal
impact, other living organisms, and fire.
“We do periodic and planned grazing so that the animals
are where they need to be at the right time and for the right
reasons that lead us toward our economic, ecological, and
social goals.”
Standing near the border of the Baumgartner Ranch, where
lush diversity abounds and stately (and locally threatened)
valley oaks sweep the landscape, Morris points to an adjoining,
more desolate property that’s been allowed to grow wild.
“There’s a societal pressure toward human intervention,”
he says. “People seem to think that if human beings
would just get out of the way, the land will return to a lush,
biological wholeness.” That’s clearly not the
case here, and Morris makes that point.
The key to good management is to know when to use which tools,
he says. For instance, grazing takes place in accordance with
the needs of the perennial grass plants, typically when moisture
and warmth are at their optimum to allow for a quick bounceback
over a 30- to 60-day recovery period. “Overgrazing is
due to defoliation of the plant a second time before it’s
had a chance to recover its root system,” Morris explains,
likening the stark reality of an overgrazed field to a withering
tree or houseplant that has been pruned too vigorously over
too short a period. “The message is that overgrazing
is about over-utilization. It doesn’t have to do with
the numbers but it has to do with time—the amount of
time that [the cattle] are in there.”
Planned grazing has other practical benefits, he says, such
as keeping annual grasses at bay, and the “herd effect”
of cattle grazing in close quarters—and at the proper
time—actually cultivating the earth with their hooves
so that perennial grass seed finds a hospitable home for germination.
“The perennial grasses will come in and will last well
into July, long after the annual grasses would have survived,”
Morris says.
“There’s tremendous energy in a herd. Most of
the time, people are worried how to dissipate it. You have
to know how to use these herds. The key is to manage them
properly.”
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Hilo’s raspberry
revolution, and Blue Heron bounty. |
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Besides marketing beef raised on a diet of organic grass
supplemented with minerals, kelp and salt, Morris works as
a land management consultant to other farmers and ranchers
and for the state of California (which is also one of his
landlords).
“Grassfed beef is not that profitable in and of itself,
but when it goes where it’s going to go, grassfed beef
is going to be very profitable indeed,” Morris says,
alluding to a future when systems dependent on heavy fossil
fuel inputs will be obsolete. “All of our production
and processing should be geared toward sunlight energy,”
he says, “and if we’re not where we need to be
in the next 30 years, we’re going to wish we were.”
To the inevitable question about mad cow disease, Morris
offered this assessment: “It’s symptomatic of
an industrial system that is detached from the health of communities.”
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