City Farmers Nursery is our idea of a good date. This nursery (and feed store, and aquaponics center, and hydroponics supply, and compost source, and...) has been around since 1972, and is smack dab in the middle of San Diego, the 8th largest city in the U.S. Owned and run by family members Bill Tall, Sam Tall and Rebecca Tall-Brown, the amazing business is often more like a field trip than a supply run.
It's a good date because you can get glass of fresh mint iced tea and biscuits and gravy at Nate's, the restaurant on site (and listen to live music on the weekends), then wander into the nursery to see what kind of drought-tolerant plants you might want to take home. It's a welcoming place to pick up supplies, talk to the pony, look at the turkey, pick out a new fruit tree, watch the bees zooming around the hives, or wander to the front desk to peruse Bill's extensive mental knowledge base for an esoteric horticultural question.
So...as if we didn't find enough reasons to go to City Farmers Nursery with all of that, we thought that the family-owned business would be a great interview and podcast topic. True family-owned businesses are becoming increasingly rare in today's world, and the merging of different generations is something that many areas of agriculture (and businesses in general) are facing. In this podcast, Bill, Sam and Rebecca discuss the challenges and the joys of merging their passions for work, life, and family roles with sweat, tears, laughter and honest communication. And with yummy biscuits from right next door, it is to be hoped.