TAUGHT SAN DIEGANS GARDENING SKILLS FOR NEARLY 50 YEARS

Long before organic gardening, native plants, sustainability and free-range chicken coops became the trendy ways to landscape backyards in San Diego, there was “Farmer Bill” Tall.

From the day he started his City Farmers Nursery in City Heights nearly 50 years ago, Tall taught generations of San Diegans how to garden in a planet-friendly way with enthusiasm, experience and kindness. He died Tuesday at age 64, following a long battle with cancer.

Local gardening author and expert Nan Sterman said Tall was always forward-thinking about gardening, even though his eclectic nursery has the look and feel of an old-fashioned mercantile and petting zoo.

“Bill was an icon, a very quiet, understated and very humble icon in the gardening community,” Sterman said. “He founded that nursery when he was teenager because he was driven by his passion. He wanted everyone to grow plants and to love growing plants. It was a place way ahead of its time.”

Tall was just 16 years old when he started City Farmers on a nearly 2-acre plot his father owned at 3110 Euclid Ave. in 1972. It’s now the city’s largest all-organic nursery, and one of the few family-run nurseries left in San Diego. City Farmers maintained a loyal following, friends say, because he catered to the needs of his customers, who would line up on weekends just to chat with “Farmer Bill,” who was known for his keen listening skills, yardstick-inspired yellow suspenders and 1,000-watt smile.

“He was a selfless, honest, caring person who was at his happiest when teaching new gardeners all of his wisdom on soil, planting and pest control,” said retired landscape designer Cynthia Drake. “Bill generously shared his wealth of horticultural information, plant materials and supplies. He was my mentor, business supporter and best friend. There will never be another like him.”

William Tall grew up in Clairemont, the youngest son of Nathan and Bertha Tall. As a boy, he and his dad tended side-by-side backyard vegetable gardens, and his mom would whisper in young Bill’s ear that his produce was the best.

“Dad always took that to mean this was something that he might be good at,” said Rebecca Tall Brown, the eldest of his three children, who all grew up living and working on the nursery property and are still involved in the business today.

In his freshman year at Clairemont’s Madison High, Tall took a class in horticulture. When he told the teacher he was thinking of starting his own nursery, the teacher asked him “why wait?” A year later, he started bicycling every weekend to the Euclid Avenue property, where his dad ran a produce stand. With little money or resources, Tall built some sawhorses for tables and he’d bike to dairies, where he could collect cow manure for free and sell it to home gardeners for a buck a bag.

At 18, he bought a mobile home and moved permanently to the property. On weekdays he did landscape maintenance, on weeknights he took horticulture classes at Mesa College and on weekends he ran the nursery. That year, Nathan Tall started charging his son rent for the land and secretly held every penny in a bank account that he left to his son when he died in 1999. With that money, Tall built a bigger home for his family on the property.

Over the years, City Farmers expanded into to a popular tourist destination, with ponies and goats to pet, an elaborate bonsai garden, a piano to play, displays of yard art and a children’s playground. In 2000, Tall added a restaurant in his dad’s memory, Nate’s Deli, now known as Nate’s Garden Grill.

One of his longtime friends and colleagues, Walter Andersen of Walter Andersen Nursery, said Tall had a unique business model. Unlike other nurseries that sell products they purchase from growers and vendors, Tall grew most of his own plants and he handmixed his own soils, potting mixes and mulches.

“He was a real old-school nursery person with a passion for plants, for the environment and for really maintaining landscapes that were not only sustainable but beautiful,” said Brad Monroe, who founded Cuyamaca College’s ornamental horticulture department.

Brown said her father embraced the melting pot of cultures in City Heights. He sold the hard-to-find fruit trees and vegetable seedlings that the local immigrant and refugee communities had grown in their native countries. He also gave many of these new Americans their first jobs in the U.S. and loved teaching classes to newbie gardeners.

“Bill found a niche that was filled by no one else,” said John Clements, the horticulture manager at San Diego Botanic Garden. “He was a visionary without even knowing it. He was basically setting the stage that you can eat food you grow on your own property, even if you’re living in the city. Looking back now, he was way ahead of the curve.”

Tall is survived by his wife, Elizabeth Gonzalez; his three children Rebecca Tall Brown, Sam Tall and Sara Tall; his stepchildren Jorge Isaac, Elizabeth Medina and Andres Medina; and his exwife, Patty Cordero.