In addition to the catalog and corresponding website, there’s also a popular online forum at www.idigmygarden.com; Bakersville, on the couple’s Missouri property, hosts an annual Spring Growing Festival that draws thousands; Baker Creek’s East Coast retail outlet Comstock, Ferre & Company, LLC; and the company’s West Coast retail store, The Seed Bank, housed in an elegant, former bank building on Petaluma Boulevard. The Gettles have even penned their first book together, titled The Heirloom Life: The Baker Creek Way of Growing Your Own Food Easily and Naturally (Hyperion Books).
Last year, the Gettles had a conversation with Diane Ott Whealy, co-founder of Seed Savers Exchange, and Barbara Melera, president of D. Landerth Seed Company, about coordinating an event on the West Coast that would raise awareness about heirloom seeds and produce, provide education on growing pure foods and encourage eating seasonally and buying food locally. The result is the first-ever National Heirloom Exposition, which will be held at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds in Santa Rosa September 13, 14 and 15.
Keynote speakers will include Ott Whealy; Dr. Vandana Shiva; Jeffery M. Smith; Alice Waters; Katie Tamony, editor-in-chief of Sunset magazine; local award-winning farmers Paul Kaiser of Singing Frog Farm; Bob Cannard of Green String Farm and Institute; and dozens more. Yet the true “stars” of the exposition will be the thousands of heirloom produce varieties on display from all over the country, grown specifically for the event and available for tasting.
The Gettles will bring heirloom melons, tomatoes and peaches from their own Missouri fields. There will also be pumpkins from Dan Bowles of Eagle River, pumpkin grower for the White House, and a giant pumpkin contest affiliated with the Great Pumpkin Commonwealth, which will include cash prizes. School gardens have also been encouraged to grow and enter produce in the exposition.
The Gettles hope the event will raise awareness about heirlooms, which are open-pollinated (they reproduce with the help of natural means such as the wind and insects) and grow true to the original characteristics of their “parents.” They’re more flavorful, more nutrition-packed and often more colorful than produce raised from hybrid seeds, which are inbred varieties that narrow the gene pool and require growers to buy new seeds each season.
“When we think ‘heirloom,’ we think of a tomato from grandma’s vegetable garden: brightly colored, fleshy, flavorful and enjoyable plucked and eaten fresh off the vine. If we keep saving these old-time seeds and buying heirloom produce, we keep these old varieties alive,” explains Gettle. “And by buying locally, we get produce picked at its peak, unlike transported produce, which is often picked early and left to ripen in transport—and often sprayed with something to prevent spoilage.”
The event will also feature “pure food” vendors offering organic breads, preserves, local honeys, olives, olive oils and more. Prominent chefs and seasoned cooks will perform cooking demonstrations, including nationally renowned chefs John Ash and Jeremy Fox, chefs and farmers Jeff and Susan Mall of Zin Restaurant and Farm in Healdsburg, cooks from Southern Exposure Seed Exchange and others.
Dozens of seed companies will be featured as well as nurseries and farm centers, gardening and farming tool manufacturers, garden accessory manufacturers, landscapers, food and garden writers, artists featuring garden-themed works, health experts, health-focused grocery stores and other related businesses. “There will be a lot of businesses sharing and learning from each other with the goal of producing and preserving healthy foods,” says Gettle.
Heritage livestock will be on display, coordinated by the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy; there will also be sheep shearing and spinning and weaving demonstrations. A mobile bee observatory, housed in a 40-foot Airstream trailer, will provide a first-hand education about honeybees and pollination, and there will be all kinds of gardening demonstrations, including composting and mulching as well as how to grow vegetables hydroponically and aquaponically.
The exposition’s weekday schedule is meant to cater to school groups, garden clubs, farming professionals, gardeners and want-to-be-farmers by day, with keynote speakers and live music added during the evenings. Special screenings of educational films on the history and future of our food will also be offered.
The National Heirloom Exposition is a not-for-profit event; any funds generated will be donated back to school gardens and food programs. An onsite auction will benefit local charities. Event sponsors in addition to Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds include Seed Savers Exchange, Sunset magazine, Marin Organic, Whole Foods, Amy’s Kitchen, Green960am and many more.
For E-tickets to the National Heirloom Exposition and for more information, visit www.theheirloomexpo.com; tickets may also be purchased at the door. Admission is $10 per day for adults ($25 for all three days); children and youth to age 17 will be admitted for free.
