NEXT AVENUE SPECIAL SECTION
Seed Catalogs: The Promise of Spring By Rosie Wolf Williams
Seed catalogs provide a great source of inspiration for all types of gardeners; there can also be a pleasurable response to having a catalog in your hands versus clicking online. "I planted my first garden when I was three," says Jere Gettle, owner of Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company in Mansfield, Missouri. "I learned to read partly through poring over the seed catalogs that came in the mail. I loved [catalogs], and from early on, I knew I wanted to be involved in the seed business when I got older. I wanted to travel and explore the places where those seeds came from.” The first seed catalog may have been a pamphlet that a London nurseryman named William Lucas sent to his customers. Then, in 1771, an American, William Prince, offered a list of fruit trees he had for sale at his nursery in New York.
As a child, Gettle was aware of the changes in the seed catalogs, noticing many of the old varieties of seeds were starting to disappear from the catalogs and were being replaced by hybrids. "My family moved from Montana to our farm in the Missouri Ozarks when I was 12. I joined Seed Savers Exchange and began trading seeds with other people interested in preserving heirloom varieties," he says. "By the time I was 17, I had enough seeds to sell, and I asked my parents what they thought about publishing a little seed catalog and sending it out to friends, family and other seed savers I knew," he recalls. "The first Baker Creek seed catalog was published in 1998. It was 12 pages long, with listings of about 70 varieties. My mom drew the artwork for the front cover and illustrations inside, and we distributed about 550 copies."
“I knew I wanted to be involved in the seed business when I got older. I wanted to travel and explore the places where those seeds came from.”
"The Smithsonian Institution Libraries have a collection of seed catalogs that include about 10,000 seed and nursery catalogs from 1830 to the present," says Kelly Funk, president of Park Seed in Greenwood, South Carolina. "Park Seed published its first catalog in 1868. The book contained just 8 pages and used two illustrations – wood cuts of an aster and a pansy."
Read more stories like this on NextAvenue.org.
20
APRIL 2023
NEXTAVENUE.ORG
Made with FlippingBook Ebook Creator