About Heirloom Seedsmen
Welcome to America's historic seed and gardening website!

Heirloom Seedsmen is a new project to showcase the garden and seed industry, heirloom plant varieties, historic gardening techniques, and the men and women who developed the garden seed industry. The idea for this online museum came about after years of collecting by Jere Gettle and the Baker Creek Seed Company, who wanted to preserve the old-time gardening varieties and the histories that went with them. So, we're developing this website to list hundreds of vintage garden catalogs and magazines for gardeners to peruse and enjoy. We're also developing a physical museum at Bakersville, near Mansfield, MO. www.StreetsOfBakersville.com

It all started in 1998 with Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, the company that now offers one of the largest selections of heirloom seeds in the U.S. with over 1200 varieties of tasty vegetables, fragrant flowers, and spicy herbs.

Groovy seeds for all your home and market garden needs. Jere collects many ethnic varieties each year through his extensive travels. We offer the most unique, colorful and flavorful varieties. Our varieties can be found in many major gardens, including Disney World, the U.S. National, Chicago, New York, St. Louis Botanic Gardens, Monticello, Living History Farms, and Colonial Williamsburg, to name a few.

Baker Creek carries one of the largest selections of seeds from the 19th century, including many Asian and European varieties. Jere Gettle founded the company in 1998 as a tool to promote and preserve our agricultural and culinary heritage. Our varieties have been featured in Organic Gardening, Mother Earth News, New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Sacramento Bee, and many others. Gardeners can request a free 100 page color catalog that now mails to nearly 120,000 gardeners nationally.

Over the past ten years, Baker Creek has branched out into other related projects as well, including The Heirloom Gardener magazine, which is now in its sixth year of publication. www.theheirloomgardener.com Our festivals started in 2000 as an idea to bring gardeners, homesteaders and natural food enthusiasts together to exchange thought, seeds, listen to speakers and enjoy vendors, old-time music and much more. Out of these festivals has grown our town. Other projects include our trial gardens, seed collecting expeditions, our popular online forums [www.idigmygarden.com], garden photography which can be seen at www.gettle.org, and educational produce exhibits at places like Silver Dollar City, which have been seen by hundreds of thousands of guests. We also work extensively to supply free seeds to many of the world's poorest countries, as well as here at home in school gardens and other educational projects. It is our goal to educate everyone about a better, safer food supply, and fight gene-altered Frankenfood and the companies that support it.

Here are a couple of stories about our seed company.
Rural Missouri Magazine
417 Magazine

You can contact us at:
Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company
2278 Baker Creek Road
Mansfield, MO 65704
(417) 924-8917
www.rareseeds.com