S O N O M A B R O A D W A Y F A R M S
May | 2014
About three years and some months ago Jill and Sesa had crossed paths in Santa Barbara and are now lovers, friends, and co-workers. Since having met at a Furthur concert, they have been inseparable in the best ways possible. Their style, interests, passions, and palates in both food and music have become seamlessly intertwined. Since March 2013 they have been living on and running Sonoma Broadway Farm. They now live a lifestyle they never could have imaged, but feel they manifested.
Q & A
How did this happen? You running and living on the farm?
A family friend had just purchased a six-acre plot of land in Sonoma in hopes of creating a sustainable farm and asked for me to come help out for a few weeks. When Sesa came to pick me up to go back down South, where we both lived, I didn't want to leave. I loved seeing the transformation that was already happening and the processes of farming. We packed up our belongings and little beach shack and moved to the farm, where we lived in our Westfalia through Spring and Summer and then eventually fixed up and moved into the old farmhouse in the Fall.
The land had only been bought a year prior to us moving there and this was truly the first real season of biointensive farming on the land. The farm was definitely in the beginning stages of development and production. We established markets for the produce, whether it be our farm stand, farmers markets, restaurants, or people coming to the farm to pick their own vegetables in the fields. We started everything from seed and planted about two acres of Spring and Summer crops and then another two acres for a pick-your-own pumpkin patch in the month of October. Everything began to fall into place and the farm slowly, but surely came to life.
There were already two folks living and working on the farm before we arrived. They had other full time jobs and were more in a work trade situation while we were hired full time. Throughout summer we filled the VW Westfalia with all our freshly harvested produce to five farmer's markets a week and then would sleep in it at night until we moved into the house at the end of Summer. Although it is sometimes tricky balancing living and working in the same space, especially with your partner, we feel lucky to experience this close bond with the earth. The property has a creek that runs through it, a beautiful corridor of Valley Oaks and vineyards surrounding it.
How did you learn to farm?
We had always had our own gardens and both eat a ton of vegetables, being vegetarian, so farming found us it feels like. Sesa comes from a farming family. His mom and grandmother who is 94 are out in their big garden in Arkansas every day, so he had grown up around it.
We have curated quite the collection of farming books, we resort to good ol Google when we're in a crunch out in the fields, we developed relationships from local farmers while at the markets and picked their brains, and have used our community resources. The beautiful thing about farming, is that you are always learning and growing!
What are some difficulties you've both come across?
We love having friends over and its always a reminder that we have a super cool thing we got going on here. But, I mean everyday waking up it's not…there's a total balance. I love living here. I love doing what we're doing, but I want it to be a bit on a smaller scale. It's hard to work where you live. Wake up every morning. It's hot. It's stressful . Also working with the person you are trying to have a happy life with and getting down in the dirt….There's a lot of the unknown, a lot of uncertainty in farming. It's not a lucrative industry. You can survive. but its more of a lifestyle.
What's you and Sesa's day to day like?
We wake up, one of us make a french press of coffee or yerba mate and we plan out our day. We make lots of lists. We now have a friend of ours Jorge working for us and he is here early so we make sure we have a project or two for him to do. We are trying to make a morning ritual of walking around the land every morning, soaking up the morning air, but it is hard when there is so much to get done the moment you step outside. Weeds to pull, animals to feed, seeds to be watered, irrigation to be turned on, plants to be transplanted or harvested, etc. It depends on the season, but we usually take a long lunch during the warmest part of the day and make a big salad and rest. We do deliveries in to San Francisco every week and also vend at farmer's markets through the summer, so its always changing. Always evolving.
Could you see yourselves doing this for the rest of your lives?
J - That is a wild question. I don't think I could see myself doing any one thing for the rest of my life at this point. I feel open to all the possibilities in this world, but farming definitely has my heart at the moment. I feel connected and tuned in when I'm farming and motivated to create more magic from the earth. I know that I will have a big, beautiful garden until I'm and old woman.
What are you passionate about?
J - I passionate about the movement of returning to the earth, of growing your own food, of leaving a minimal impact, building community through permaculture and art, and bridging the connection of where our food comes from and how it grows.
What else do you wish to accomplish?
J - Something along those lines. Connecting food, farming, activism, art, and community. And travel. I want to travel to different indigenous communities and see their models of permaculture and design, their forms of art, their food, and their spirituality.
How do you spend your free time?
We listen, play music. Sesa's quite the drummer . We're now closer to my family so we see them a lot. Take the Westfalia out for a cruise. The river we always go to is only 45 minutes away and we go into the city (SF) maybe twice a week to feel connected, feel young, not so settled.
About three years and some months ago Jill and Sesa had crossed paths in Santa Barbara and are now lovers, friends, and co-workers. Since having met at a Furthur concert, they have been inseparable in the best ways possible. Their style, interests, passions, and palates in both food and music have become seamlessly intertwined. Since March 2013 they have been living on and running Sonoma Broadway Farm. They now live a lifestyle they never could have imaged, but feel they manifested.
Q & A
How did this happen? You running and living on the farm?
A family friend had just purchased a six-acre plot of land in Sonoma in hopes of creating a sustainable farm and asked for me to come help out for a few weeks. When Sesa came to pick me up to go back down South, where we both lived, I didn't want to leave. I loved seeing the transformation that was already happening and the processes of farming. We packed up our belongings and little beach shack and moved to the farm, where we lived in our Westfalia through Spring and Summer and then eventually fixed up and moved into the old farmhouse in the Fall.
The land had only been bought a year prior to us moving there and this was truly the first real season of biointensive farming on the land. The farm was definitely in the beginning stages of development and production. We established markets for the produce, whether it be our farm stand, farmers markets, restaurants, or people coming to the farm to pick their own vegetables in the fields. We started everything from seed and planted about two acres of Spring and Summer crops and then another two acres for a pick-your-own pumpkin patch in the month of October. Everything began to fall into place and the farm slowly, but surely came to life.
There were already two folks living and working on the farm before we arrived. They had other full time jobs and were more in a work trade situation while we were hired full time. Throughout summer we filled the VW Westfalia with all our freshly harvested produce to five farmer's markets a week and then would sleep in it at night until we moved into the house at the end of Summer. Although it is sometimes tricky balancing living and working in the same space, especially with your partner, we feel lucky to experience this close bond with the earth. The property has a creek that runs through it, a beautiful corridor of Valley Oaks and vineyards surrounding it.
How did you learn to farm?
We had always had our own gardens and both eat a ton of vegetables, being vegetarian, so farming found us it feels like. Sesa comes from a farming family. His mom and grandmother who is 94 are out in their big garden in Arkansas every day, so he had grown up around it.
We have curated quite the collection of farming books, we resort to good ol Google when we're in a crunch out in the fields, we developed relationships from local farmers while at the markets and picked their brains, and have used our community resources. The beautiful thing about farming, is that you are always learning and growing!
What are some difficulties you've both come across?
We love having friends over and its always a reminder that we have a super cool thing we got going on here. But, I mean everyday waking up it's not…there's a total balance. I love living here. I love doing what we're doing, but I want it to be a bit on a smaller scale. It's hard to work where you live. Wake up every morning. It's hot. It's stressful . Also working with the person you are trying to have a happy life with and getting down in the dirt….There's a lot of the unknown, a lot of uncertainty in farming. It's not a lucrative industry. You can survive. but its more of a lifestyle.
What's you and Sesa's day to day like?
We wake up, one of us make a french press of coffee or yerba mate and we plan out our day. We make lots of lists. We now have a friend of ours Jorge working for us and he is here early so we make sure we have a project or two for him to do. We are trying to make a morning ritual of walking around the land every morning, soaking up the morning air, but it is hard when there is so much to get done the moment you step outside. Weeds to pull, animals to feed, seeds to be watered, irrigation to be turned on, plants to be transplanted or harvested, etc. It depends on the season, but we usually take a long lunch during the warmest part of the day and make a big salad and rest. We do deliveries in to San Francisco every week and also vend at farmer's markets through the summer, so its always changing. Always evolving.
Could you see yourselves doing this for the rest of your lives?
J - That is a wild question. I don't think I could see myself doing any one thing for the rest of my life at this point. I feel open to all the possibilities in this world, but farming definitely has my heart at the moment. I feel connected and tuned in when I'm farming and motivated to create more magic from the earth. I know that I will have a big, beautiful garden until I'm and old woman.
What are you passionate about?
J - I passionate about the movement of returning to the earth, of growing your own food, of leaving a minimal impact, building community through permaculture and art, and bridging the connection of where our food comes from and how it grows.
What else do you wish to accomplish?
J - Something along those lines. Connecting food, farming, activism, art, and community. And travel. I want to travel to different indigenous communities and see their models of permaculture and design, their forms of art, their food, and their spirituality.
How do you spend your free time?
We listen, play music. Sesa's quite the drummer . We're now closer to my family so we see them a lot. Take the Westfalia out for a cruise. The river we always go to is only 45 minutes away and we go into the city (SF) maybe twice a week to feel connected, feel young, not so settled.
" Last Summer we were up at 5 am everyday. Would take the bed out of the Wesfalia, put all the produce in and take it to two farmer's markets in one day, Come back and unload…I was so fucking tired, but I'll look back in life and think of how great it was."
- Jill Andersen
"We use peas as a cover crop, as an organic way of not using fertilizer, more so a green maneuer compost. We grow things that produce a lot of nitrogen. Just before the plants start producing, we mow it down, and disc it into the ground, putting nitrogen back into the soil. Doing this pulls nutrients out of the air, converting the atmospheric nitrogen into ammonium nitrate, allowing the plants to use it, which really helps the environment."
- Sesa Carreras
S O N O M A B R O A D W A Y F A R M S :::
Owned by Preston Raisin. Jill and Sesa have been managing and running the six acre farm Since March 2013. They are currently growing a variety of things including a plethora of melons, tomatoes, peppers, squashes, greens, herbs and flowers. As they have complete creative freedom, they have become involved in the community around them. Engaging themselves and selling produce at local farmer's markets, restaurants such as Delessio, weekend farm stands, and seasonal pumpkin patches. After they had repurposed and restored an old greenhouse from a nursery that was going out of business down the road, they have been able to extend the growing season for certain crops. They have recently hired a good friend of theirs, Jorge, full time. Jorge, originally from Mexico City came out here to live in the country and visit his family in Sonoma. After meeting the two at a farmer's market he started working on the farm and is now there forty hours a week, 8 am-4 pm. With extra hands, I'm sure they are able to focus on other things and really expand internally.
Sonoma Broadway Farms has an amazing future ahead of it. Aside from the delicious crops that are produced, the hard work and positive energy that is put into the farm is strongly present. The lifestyle that they have learned to live is a blessing and a learning experience for both. This is only the beginning of their ventures, I'm excited to see whats in store for them.
Owned by Preston Raisin. Jill and Sesa have been managing and running the six acre farm Since March 2013. They are currently growing a variety of things including a plethora of melons, tomatoes, peppers, squashes, greens, herbs and flowers. As they have complete creative freedom, they have become involved in the community around them. Engaging themselves and selling produce at local farmer's markets, restaurants such as Delessio, weekend farm stands, and seasonal pumpkin patches. After they had repurposed and restored an old greenhouse from a nursery that was going out of business down the road, they have been able to extend the growing season for certain crops. They have recently hired a good friend of theirs, Jorge, full time. Jorge, originally from Mexico City came out here to live in the country and visit his family in Sonoma. After meeting the two at a farmer's market he started working on the farm and is now there forty hours a week, 8 am-4 pm. With extra hands, I'm sure they are able to focus on other things and really expand internally.
Sonoma Broadway Farms has an amazing future ahead of it. Aside from the delicious crops that are produced, the hard work and positive energy that is put into the farm is strongly present. The lifestyle that they have learned to live is a blessing and a learning experience for both. This is only the beginning of their ventures, I'm excited to see whats in store for them.
We keep bees. They're ours. Well we're theirs. they're really keeping us, not we're keeping them.
- Sesa Carreras