GOOD, HONEST, SAFE AND SUSTAINABLY GROWN PRODUCTS ...
WELL PRESERVED FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS,” “They have beautiful produce,” said Jeannie Sykes, owner of Zookers, one of Carpinteria’s most popular restaurants. “It’s grown locally, and they have herbs and vegetables that you can’t find anywhere else.” Gathering devoted customers like Sykes began many decades ago for Coleman Family Farm. Bill grew up in Santa Barbara and started farming on his father’s land near Ontare Road in the 1950s. He worked diligently for a number of years, and in 1964, he purchased the property in Gobernador Canyon and created Coleman Family Farm.
To make the payments on his new land, Bill worked Monday through Friday at his father’s store, Coleman Building Materials. When Bill asked his father how he would ever build a successful farm working most daylight hours at the store his father replied, “Well, you have the weekends.” So Bill used every spare hour to get his farm running. He planted his hillside property in peas, bringing in just enough money to make his monthly payments. A cold winter in Coleman Family Farm’s youth proved to be the good fortune that Bill needed.
OPPOSITE PAGE, TOP LEFT, a worker picks produce by hand. TOP RIGHT, plants are cut individually when ready for market. BOTTOM LEFT, mixing and rotating crops helps keep pests at bay. BOTTOM RIGHT, produce picked in the morning is sold at the afternoon farmers market and eaten for dinner at night. THIS PAGE, ABOVE, the chemical-free produce from Coleman Family Farm requires hands in the soil and on the crops.
The peas grown to the north froze, never making it to the market and driving up the price of Bill’s healthy crop to $3 a pound. After a few years, Bill astounded his father by paying off every penny of the farm. With plenty of fresh produce and no one else to feed, Coleman decided that it was time to start a family. He traveled to the Philippines in 1969 to meet his future bride.
“He rescued me from being an old maid,” Delia remembers with a laugh. “When I was working (in the Philippines) never in my mind did I think I’d come here and marry a white guy.”
In 1972, under the guidance of local farmer Randy Wade, the Colemans and five other growers started a weekly farmers market. Sitting in front of the Santa Barbara Mission, Bill and Delia set up “a cigar box and a card table” and offered a diversity of vegetables and greens. The previous farmers market in Santa Barbara had shut down in 1947, and the goal of the new market was “raising a healthy product and keeping the land healthy,” according to Bill.
“We’d make $40 to $50 a pop and then go eat a pizza and fill up the gas tank and go grocery shopping,” Bill recalls. “And we were happy as two peas in a pod.” While Coleman Family Farm continued to grow, so did the Coleman family. Six healthy Coleman children helped to produce and consume the farm’s harvest. During summer vacations, a half-day of work on the
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