Today we’d like to introduce you to Sam Wiseman.
Hi Sam, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, let’s briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today.
I started at Schlafly Farmers Market in Maplewood as a Cut Flower farmer with value-added products and pumpkins. My husband Billy and I were recruited from there to be vendors at the opening season at Tower Grove Market. At this time, I mostly did the markets alone while he worked full-time at the Chrysler Plant in Fenton. While doing Schlafly during the week and Tower Grove on the weekends, I was expanding what I was growing back to food, as my heart was not really into the flowers. I was approached by Kelly Childs, who was running the Slow Food St. Louis chapter, about applying for a grant for Disappearing Food Sources. I fell in love with the concept of saving animal breeds, varieties of foods, and food preparation techniques from extinction. Heirloom tomatoes had just come on the scene, and so I applied. I looked into the Ark of Taste USA, where the varieties are chosen. My first grant from Slow Food was to improve my greenhouse for tomatoes and purchase a batch of Cayuga Ducklings. I love tomatoes and consider them one of my main focuses of growing. The Cayuga ducks satisfied my desire to raise a duck different than other farmers were raising. It is a black duck, which would make it safer from aerial predators, and it was seriously endangered, with only 12 breeding flocks left. It is the only duck that lays multiple colors of eggs. Since acquiring the grant, we have grown our flock and raised awareness of the breed by teaching customers at the Farmers Market to eat duck eggs over chicken eggs and selling the extra males as Roasting Birds for holiday dinners. We have been able to sell breeding Trios and Quartets a few times to perpetuate the breed further.
I received several more grants from Slow Food S. Louis. Two of these were for St. Croix Sheep. The first was for the breeding stock, and the 2nd was to improve pasture to get the lamb to market more quickly. St. Croix, a true American sheep breed, has superior parasite resistance and is an excellent mother and forager with a greater meat-to-bone ratio. Another grant was for Old Type Rhode Island Red Chickens and one for Heirloom fruit trees. We own the last 8 Meeches Prolific Quince trees sold in the US, Arkansas: Black Apples, 3 Black Republican cherries, a Black Tartarian Cherry tree, and a Russian Quince. Other Heirloom and Sustainable fruits we are growing include Montmorency Cherry, Wild Norton Grapes (Missouri’s State Grape), Cultivated Concord Grapes, Elderberries, and Wineberries. No one else in the area is growing Wineberries, Quince, Norton Grapes, or Black Republican Cherries for Marketing in the St Louis area. The final grant we received from Slow Food was for Wild Ramps, also known as Garlic Ramps, Bear Garlic, or Wild Leeks. We have cultivated them on a wooded and otherwise unused section of our property and have had some to sell the last 3 seasons. We only take a small amount each season to allow them to go to seed for fruition.
Overharvesting is one of the reasons that this food source is disappearing. We’re the only farm selling them in the St. Louis Markets. In the fall, we spend a lot of time gathering pumpkins and apples from pantries, compost companies, patches, and orchards for our animals (mainly sheep) that would typically end up in landfills or simply going to waste. We use this to supplement the lack of pasture due to the fall droughts that Missouri has had for the last few years. In this way, we are grain-free for the lamb that we sell. Over the years, we have become well known, not so much for the quantity we bring to the market but for our large number of tomato varieties (45) and willingness to educate the public on forgotten food sources. I allow the weed Purslane a forgotten vegetable in the US, to grow in our rows, sell it alone, and add other wild greens such as chickweed, lamb quarter, wood sorrel, primrose, violet, and redbud flowers to my salad mixes. I take starter plants of the 45 varieties of tomatoes to sell at the market, along with the produce that will come from them. It encourages people to become closer to their food and understand the importance of providing things that are no longer available at the store. While you can only have a Sunflower Savannah farm with Sunflowers, we have morphed from a Cut flower farm to a Specialty crop farm; and now we consider ourselves a Slow Food Farm. It seems odd to some people that growing Disappearing Food Sources and selling them at the market is helpful for something that is in danger of extinction. Still, by teaching people about them, raising plants that will reproduce their own seeds, sheep for breeding stock and delicious meat, and eggs from birds in danger of dying out, that you are also growing awareness of their chance of extinction. More people will ask for them to be raised and will develop them for themselves, and in this way, you are keeping the breeds alive.
We all face challenges, but looking back, would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
We have survived a lot of hardships over our 19 years in the Markets. I have been through 2 severe bouts of cancer while my customers have watched my hair come and go. Even though I constantly say we, my husband was, for 10 years, part of that group of people who traveled hundreds of miles for work when the Chrysler plant in Fenton shut down, in order to maintain insurance while I stayed here and ran the farm with my mom, Betty. We are part of the Wwoofusa program and receive some help from volunteers there and from other sources. We are always looking for volunteers.
I appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
What I do is a vocation. I am saddened by how the food system has changed so much that the new generation doesn’t recognize good food and pure taste. My passion is to reconnect people with this. Our farm is well known for its unique foods and old-school eating methods. I once had an older man tell me with tears in his eyes that he hadn’t tasted a tomato like one of ours since his dad had died. Customers always tell me that they know my tomatoes will taste like a tomato should. We never refrigerate tomatoes that are coming to Market. Not only does it reduce flavor, but it allows for faster decomposition when the customer takes it home. We specialize in variety, pureness of flavor, and education for people who want to become healthier through their food. I believe that this is the main reason I have survived cancer and am so functional in the aftermath. We’re Certified Naturally Grown, a higher standard than Organic for Small Farmers. Our ducks and chickens are fed with entirely Organic Feed. Most of our indoor Growing Spaces are from Recycled Materials, such as old sliding glass doors, donated plastic, and blocks, and we reuse our weed barrier fabric (some of which came from when Busch Stadium was pulled down) year after year by rolling it up at the end of each season.
Some unique crops that we grow:
45 Varieties of Tomatoes, Tomatillos, Lemon and Crystal Apple Cucumbers, Honeoye Strawberries, Concord and Norton Grapes, 3 varieties of Quince, Garlic Ramps, Egyptian Walking Onions, Yard Long Beans, Red Noodle Beans, Thai Soldier Beans, Cardinal Basil, German Extra Hardy, Basque Turban and Spanish Rojo Garlic, Sugar Pea Magnolia Pea Pods, Fava Beans, Lemon Spice Jalapenos, Port Wine Tawny and Lemon Drop Peppers.
Is there a quality that you most attribute to your success?
The inability to give in to adversity.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.sunflowersavannah.com
- Instagram: @sunflowersavannahfarm
