The Garden On Gooseneck Road: Baker's Creek Spring Festival

Written 2019 for this particular blog. This blog site will, from time to time, include stories I wrote when my husband and I owned part of Mom and Dad's farm with my own website, and shortly after Y2K when I wrote for a now-defunct garden site. This is not a how-to site.

Back in 2008, when I was pushing hard with my herb business, I realized that it could also, besides earning a farm-based income, allow me to travel.

I had been infatuated with Baker's Creek Heirloom Seeds for quite some time. Here was a young kid from Missouri saving and selling seeds from varieties that may have been planted by my great-grandfathers and mothers. He was also vocal about why it was important - the loss of bio-diversity, the monopolization of corporate giants and the like. His timing was good too, coming up on Y2K in which many people started looking for ways to be independent in case of world-wide collapse.

On the surface one would suppose this to be a bad business plan -- selling open pollinated seeds and encourage customers to save their own seeds.

But it worked. Today Baker's Creek is the largest heirloom seed company in the world.

THEN...

Baker's Creek Heirloom Seed Company's spring festival near sunset from our campsite out in the field in 2008.

Below is my daughter, almost seven months pregnant, with our double booth. She made tie-dye and I brought my herbal soap. Because we were able to rent space from in the tent provided by Baker's Creek, we had enough room in my small-ish car for camping gear. All we had to do was make enough money for our gas, which we did.

Jere and Emilee stopped by and bought some tie-dye for their new baby, and I gifted bars of my garden soap for the entire staff (made with an heirloom variety of corn meal for pumice.) I ran around buying plants, mostly herbs and multiple varieties of heirloom tomatoes if I remember correctly, and as many as I could stuff in the car that would still make for a comfortable ride back to Ohio.

The Mercantile and the Apothecary in 2008 is part of what is now a full-blown historical village (Bakersville Pioneer Village), where they host the spring festival as well as monthly gatherings. The Gettles have also written a couple books, own three businesses (Comstock, Ferre Seed Company of Wethersfield, Connecticut and is New England’s oldest seed company, in business since at least 1811)and the Petaluma Seed Bank in Petaluma, California. )

While Daughter dressed in her usually modern hippie attire :-), I jumped on the chance to wear my Civil War era work dress because historical attire is encouraged. However, due to the astounding heat and humidity one of the two years we vended was so bad that I couldn't stand the thought of wearing it the second day, although my blue jeans definitely wasn't any better!

The second year we vended with Baby Audrey but I can't find photographs of that trip. After that, we were hit will the full force of the depression/recession of 2008, sold the farm in 2010, and moved out of state.

NOW...

Hippie Momma, Baby Audrey and me, 11 years later.

Jere and Emilee are very approachable, walking through the vendor areas speaking with vendors and customers alike, sometimes with children in tow. Their family has grown and the business has had explosive growth. The last I heard, 10,000+ people attended even though the lead speaker was cancelled and rainfall that would have made Noah proud caused a last-minute change of camping arrangements.

There were Ozarkian musicians scattered about plus a couple of barns with music stages because another thing Jere and Emilee are working to save is the culture of the area's music. There were food trucks and a restaurant and a variety of sweet treats, multiple vendor tents -- both private pop-ups and large, multiple merchant tents similar to where we once rented space, and an enormous tent for garden and homesteading -based speakers, many of whom I follow on You-Tube.

Lines were long to get in, there were tours of the multiple greenhouses, and getting into the seed store was a challenge at times. There were also many, many people pulling children's wagons full of garden plants, bushes and trees and the like, as well as just about any garden-related crafts imaginable such as birdhouses, gourd art, enticing jams and jellies, garden aprons, garden tools and garden art.

We waited almost two hours on Sunday afternoon to get in, which was about two hours after it opened!

The Gettles have a strong philanthropic side to them and my daughter has received many seed packets for the montessori school where she is the head chef. The students help in the gardens and the kitchen so she had them write thank you notes and they also sent a few plants along with us to present to Jere and Emilee.

From the top of the hill looking out to where I'm pretty sure we camped 11 years ago. A lot can happen in a few years! My daughter and granddaughter toured the greenhouses which were offered every hour. I had seen many you-tube videos plus I was pretty sure a greenhouse in Missouri in May was not going to very comportable for (as you-tuber Jessica Sowards of Roots & Refuge would say...) a frigid northerner lol. Instead, I hung out at the seed store .