Brad Gates of Wild Boar Farms.

Brad Gates has a good reason to smile. Depending on the vagaries of nature, Brad will be harvesting lilacs on and off from mid March through mid May and, invariably by 10:30 a.m., they're all gone. Some of his lilacs were planted one hundred years ago in the driveway of a Vacaville estate. The balance are grown on two acres he leases in Napa in what used to be a plant nursery. Long abandoned, the only plants that survived were the eucalyptus and lilacs which he nursed back to health.

From late June through early November, Brad assumes the persona for which he's best known: "The Tomato Man". He grows sixty to seventy different varieties and many, he says, are unique specimens that no one else offers. The best selling variety is the "Cherokee Purple", but customers choose from all shapes, sizes and colors.

Brad has been farming since 1999. He uses no sprays and only natural fertilizers.