Miranda Forni gives new life to the family’s famous produce
Miranda Forni gives new life to the family’s famous produce
By Anne Ward Ernst
NAPA VALLEY — It was when Forni-Brown-Welsh Gardens in Calistoga closed in 2018 that Miranda Forni decided she wanted to carry on the tradition and open her own nursery.
“It seemed like something that needed to continue,” Forni said. “I was at a place in my life where I could do that.”
She had been working as a teacher, but it didn’t feel like her passion career.
“Maybe I just reverted to my childhood,” she said, referring to growing up and working with her father, Peter Forni, at the nursery.
Miranda’s sister, Alexis Forni, took a sabbatical from her job in Southern California and came up to help Miranda get Forni Farm & Nursery started. They purchased 3 acres of land in northern Santa Rosa in a location Miranda thought was perfect because it’s an easy drive from Calistoga — head west on Porter Creek, which becomes Mark West Springs Road, pass Highway 101 and take the first left on Barnes Road. It opened in early 2020.
Customers from Calistoga, St. Helena and Napa have found Miranda and her farm and are continuing the tradition of buying seeds and plant starts from this small family-oriented farm.
“I wanted to create something special like [Forni-Brown-Welsh],” she said. “When longtime customers of Forni-Brown come here, they get the same experience they had there.”
Miranda is now the fifth generation of Fornis to farm, and her youngest daughter, Isabella, 8, told her mom that she wants to take over the nursery when she grows up. Miranda’s family all pitches in to help, but her dad, Peter, has been the most involved, she said. She always “gravitated” toward him as a kid, and she feels grateful for her outdoorsy upbringing. It’s the way she is raising her own children.
“If they’re not at school they’re [at the nursery] hanging out outside,” Miranda said. “It’s an environment they are used to being in.”
Teaching them about growing food and caring for the land are important lessons Miranda learned as a child, and she wants to pass them on to the next generation.
“I appreciate that I was raised with these values and grew up in an environment where I got to be in touch with food, growing food, gardening and nature,” she said.
Before Miranda and Alexis started the farm, Miranda was doing culinary gardening for Scott Pikey, who was chef at Mayacamas Golf Club. After a few years, they both moved on in different directions, but Miranda continues to grow for one customer, Chef Jennifer McMurry at Bloom Carneros, which is the restaurant inside Kivelstadt Cellars and WineGarten in the city of Sonoma.
Culinary gardening helped Forni-Brown-Welsh gain notoriety for the gardens and produce they grew for chefs such as Cindy Pawlcyn and Thomas Keller.
Forni Farm produces its own seeds for a variety of plants and is growing the Copper River tomato that Peter’s partner, Lynn Brown, developed. It is a beefsteak-like bicolor tomato that comes in hues of brown, green and pink.
Another tomato, the Great Syrian developed by Forni-Brown-Welsh, got the attention of Mimi Sheraton, a restaurant critic and food writer for The New York Times who died in April. In 2013 Sheraton listed the Great Syrian as one of her top-10 most memorable meals, though the tomato wasn’t a meal — it was just memorable.
Creating a community and providing experiences for customers are goals for Miranda. Providing something simple and wholesome feels right “in a world where things seem to move so quickly,” she said.
For the last few years, she has held a garden camp for children ages 7 to 12 during the summer. This year the children planted their own potted garden and got to take it home. They learn about composting, worms, the basic elements of gardening, seed harvesting, and arts and crafts. Most of the camp takes place under a stately oak tree, which she said is a “nice place for gathering.”
Alexis continues to help out for springtime plant sales and other activities as well as managing the business’s website and digital presence and “all the things that aren’t my strengths,” Miranda said.
Miranda’s strength is in the gardening growing healthy plants. Everything she sells is produced at Forni Farm. She has a small crew and plans to keep the business small because she cares about the “health and integrity” of her plants.
“We really are putting our hands on everything,” she said — from seeds and soil to the growing plants.
Forni Farm grows tomatoes, sweet and hot peppers, squash, eggplant, beans, melons and more. Pumpkins are on the list, too. The nursery at 4000 Barnes Road in Santa Rosa is selling winter starts now and is open Thursday through Saturday from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. until Nov. 4.
Anne Ward Ernst is a journalist who loves covering the Napa Valley.