Dear Gardening Friends,
It has been another amazing year for the pure food movement. The economy, concerns about gene-altered food, and the renewed interest in home gardening have kept our small company buzzing with activity. Along with many other seed companies, we struggled to keep up last season, running out of 150,000 catalogs by the middle of January! We had never seen anything like it: the new interest in gardening has just been incredible. Millions of people are gardening for the first time, and possibly more young families are gardening than at any time since the Great Depression.
This year, to help keep up with this exciting trend, we are printing over 250,000 new catalogs. We have really filled these pages with loads of new varieties—some of the best tomatoes from Russia, unique wild melons from Africa and plenty of your favorite flowers from years gone by. We hope you enjoy!
Let’s rock the food supply in 2010! Let’s put the home gardener and local farmer back in control of our food supply, our lives and our freedom. It is time for gardeners to learn to save seed again: yes, save seed! Let’s put the biotech and chemical corporations back on the shelf, letting them know we don’t need their toxins, patents, lobbyists and lawyers.
You are the biggest threat to big, corporate agriculture, and they are starting to get nervous. This is why the corporate agriculture magazines don’t go an issue without bashing the good food movement, and why the American Seed Trade Association (ASTA) does not miss a beat in promoting gene-altered seeds. Right now, ASTA has launched a new propaganda website that promotes stronger corporate control, patent laws and of course more gene-altering of our seed supply. The sad fact is many garden seed companies are members of this GMO lobbying group. We ask our customers to be part of a letter writing campaign–let’s ask the garden seed industry to drop all associations with this powerful lobbying group, which is largely funded by a few giant biotech corporations.
Our company has been involved with many projects this past season, promoting heirlooms and good food. Our biggest project of 2009 was opening a new location in Sonoma County, California, in the lovely town of Petaluma. Last June our family, along with several friends, traveled out West to set up our new seed store in a 1920’s historic bank building. The response in Petaluma has been overwhelming and we want to thank the fine folks of this town for being incredibly welcoming and friendly. We hope to meet many of our customers each year as we spend time in the Golden State.
Meanwhile, back in Missouri, at our Seed Company and Pioneer Farm, we have had changes too, including opening our restaurant, building a new warehouse, a couple historic cabins, more gardens and more poultry and animal exhibits.We have also been expanding our web presence with an updated web site, www.rareseeds.com; our online forums, www.idigmygarden.com now has over 400,000 posts! Also follow us at www.twitter.com/rareseeds for the latest news.
In 2010 we will again host twelve monthly festivals, including our big “Spring Planting Festival” May 2 and 3, 2010. Our events have become a place for people from Missouri and across America to learn, network and enjoy time with fellow gardeners, craftsmen, musicians, farmers and all who love the slow life. These events are just like an old-time county fair.
Our family has been doing well and, as you can see, we have been very busy. We had a good time traveling this fall and visited some farmers and friends. In September, we traveled to beautiful North Carolina and enjoyed the mountains and all the local, fresh food. On our way, we attended the Garden Writers Conference in Raleigh, which had near record attendance and loads of interest in heirloom seeds. Then we hurried back to the Farm Aid Concert in Saint Louis, Missouri where all the talk was local, heirloom and non-GMO food. Everywhere local food is selling more briskly, and farmers markets have become quite popular. We love to visit each and every market as we travel, and little Sasha loves to eat the samples. We all do!
We want to thank each and every one of you for making our family business of seed preservation a success, helping us swim against the river of modern agriculture! Best wishes for an abundant harvest!
God Bless,
Jere, Emilee and Sasha Gettle
P.S. Sasha is now 2 years old, and her favorite hobbies are picking flowers and traveling.
Garden writers: We have a large library of photos, historical information & variety descriptions, contact us with your needs.