Feeding her roots
Late-blooming farmer honors her multicultural heritage with the crops she raises
The name Leslie Wiser chose for her small, intensive vegetable farm in Sebastopol — Radical Family Farms — probably says it all.
After a failed marriage and the realization that she wanted — needed — to raise her children on a farm, Wiser began searching for land. It would be another seven years before she came across this 1.5-acre Sebastopol farm and planted her first crop — a cover crop to replenish the soil.
With support from her family — her daughter, her son and a new partner — the former Midwestern digital project manager has transformed into a Northern California farmer with one of the most popular CSA or Community-Supported-Agriculture operations in the area. Along the way, she’s uncovering, exploring and embracing her mixed-race heritage through the vegetables she grows.
Q A How did you become a farmer?
I’d worked on a farm one season during my sophomore year in college in Alaska. I realized then that’s what I wanted to do, but I didn’t think I’d ever be able to because it’s so expensive to buy land.
I actually was on my way to Washington. I was married, and it wasn’t working, and the state I lived in didn’t recognize same-sex marriage, so I had to move to a state that did to get a divorce. I have friends in the Seattle area, but I have family in Sonoma County, and I decided I needed their support, so I started looking for property here.
Q
How have you explored your Taiwanese-Chinese and German-Polish heritage through what you grow?
A
I probably lean more to my Asian roots. This year, I cut back on Italian zucchini and yellow squash and replaced it with loofa, Chinese okra and a Korean variety of bottle gourds. I grow a lot of Asian vegetables.
Before I started, I surveyed my aunts and uncles on both sides, asking what vegetables do they wish they had more access to, what vegetables were “home” to them. It’s really helped me to connect with my family, especially my Polish-German grandmother.
My other grandmother was constantly looking for foods of her heritage, so I was familiar with Asian vegetables, but I didn’t know their Mandarin names. In the United States, most of the vegetables have Cantonese names, so I had to learn both.
Q
How do you bring your mixed heritage into your kitchen?
A
I try to bring it full circle. Every Sunday, I try to cook maybe a German pastry and a Chinese dish, using vegetables from the farm. I want my kids to have those same food memories. Passing that heritage along to them is important to me. We are within one generation of losing the German and Chinese languages. Food — produce and herbs — is the last thing we can do to keep that connection.
We take the kids to Taiwan every year, except last year, and I enroll them in a Taiwanese language school. They speak it much better than I do now.
Q
This is the third season you’ve had CSA boxes, and I see you have a waiting list for them...
A
We have 250 members getting the boxes, and people on the waiting list usually don’t have to wait too long, maybe a couple of weeks, before we can onboard them.
Q
I know you do regenerative farming, but are you organic?
A
We’re not certified, but we do a lot of the same practices. We don’t spray anything, and we don’t use pesticides at all. We have a two-wheel tractor, and we made a big investment in a compost spreader that we can pull behind the tractor. That saves days and days and really speeds up the process of bed flipping. We mulch to help retain water, and we use every bit of space by interplanting. We only have an acre and half, so we don’t waste any space.
Q
Your degree and work experience is in media arts and science, and you worked in the corporate world. How did you become such an experienced farmer?
A
I’m actually really green. There’s a lot of trial and error. When I made the decision to go into farming, I submersed myself in books. I taught myself the skills, and when I moved to Sonoma County, I took the Master Gardener training. I’ve learned a lot, but there’s always more to know.