Amy Rice Jones from Petaluma Bounty shares fall planting tips

Post by Sue Capella
We had a full house at The Seed Bank last week for Amy Rice Jones’s free talk on fall planting. Farm manager for Petaluma’s popular food growing non profit, Amy is well respected in the community for her wealth of knowledge on sustainable farming and raising all things green. And her talk was full of great tips for local gardeners hoping to reap the bounty of a fall and winter vegetable garden.

Amy touched on everything, including what to plant from seed now, what needs to be planted from starts, soil amending, veggie bed location and sun exposure, cover crops, and how to protect soil during the winter.

If you’re going to broadcast seeds directly into the ground, don’t delay, you must plant when there are still midday hot spells, said Amy.

Amy answering questions of guests at the Seed Bank

Depending on your location and the vegetable, you can plant seeds now through early October. Get those root crops in as soon as possible though, she stresses, including carrots and beets. And with carrots, keep the soil very moist until they sprout. Some of Amy’s favorite heirloom carrot varieties include “Scarlet Knots” and “Atomic Red.” As for beets, only plant red varieties—no golden varieties in the winter. She likes “Bull’s Blood” and “Early Wonder.”

Other fall veggies that can be planted directly in the ground from seed this month (September) include bok choy, chicory, radicchio, Chinese cabbage, mache, endive and escarole, kohlrabi, radishes, turnips, and leafy greens, including kale, spinach, and lettuces. Some of Amy’s lettuce favorites include “Winter Density” and “Little Gem.” “Bloomsdale” spinach, another favorite, can be planted by seed directly into the ground now through early October and then again February through March for a successive crop.

Bok choy seeds can be sown now through October and again February through March; radishes, through October and again February through April.

Other cool weather crops to plant now include broccoli, mustards, cauliflower, onions, and garlic. Many heirloom garlic varieties can be planted through November.

In October, November, and December, you can’t plant seeds, Amy said. “Plant starts then.”

“With fall and winter vegetables, water midday to help them cool down in hot spells while getting established,” she added.

And give them 6 to 8 hours of sun, preferably including the hours of 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Soils become compacted easily during the rainy season, Amy pointed out. She recommends planting cover crops to stop winter soil from getting compacted, keep the soil “alive,” and serve as nutrients that can be worked into the soil.

Cool season cover crops Amy recommends include legumes, bell beans, oats, vetch, and mustards. Naturally emerging weeds such as chickweed and miners’ lettuce are also good as companion plants, helping protect the soil in winter rain.

Mulches, including straw (not hay), also stop the rain from compacting the soil.

Amy uses a pitchfork to work the soil at Petaluma Bounty Farm, where adobe clay is abundant. She digs down at least to the tines, she says. “The deeper you can cultivate your soil, the deeper the roots can go and get more nutrients.”

(You can pick up a Vegetable Planting Summary compiled by the Sonoma County Master Gardeners at The Seed Bank for more particulars on fall and winter crop planting or bring your planting questions to our in store horticulturalist, Gwen Kilchherr, who’s at the store Mondays through Wednesdays. And there are many opportunities to volunteer at the Petaluma Bounty Farm and learn about raising food crops firsthand. Visit www.petalumabounty.org for details.)

Organic Radish Soap

When Seed Bank shoppers wait in line at the checkout counter, many are drawn to pick up one of the vegetable soaps on display beneath and give it a sniff. They often even add a bar or two to their purchase.

These produce inspired soaps containing certified organic ingredients are such popular sellers that we decided to talk to their creators and share the story behind such gardener friendly “flavors” as carrot, radish, and cucumber.

What we discovered is that the 5 ounce bars actually get their natural vegetable garden essences from certified organic vegetables, fruits, and herbs grown on a 500 acre beef ranch in Nicasio.

There’s a lot of mooing going on as grass fed cows roam the hills of this west Marin property called Cow Track Ranch, but amongst the blond landscape, green oasises thrive—two acres in all—where organic farmer Liz Daniels raises the produce and herbs that find their way into the Gourmet Garden Soap that’s become a Seed Bank favorite.

Her soaps are actually made with the “leftovers,” says Liz, who owns the ranch with husband, Bruce, a large animal veterinarian. “That way nothing goes to waste.”

Liz Daniels Weeding Lettuce in Her Organic Garden

What Liz means is that the certified organic produce and herbs she raises have other purposes. Pounds and pounds go to Marin Organic’s school lunch program, and the rest of her just picked veggies, fruit, and herbs go to local restaurants and fine food purveyors, including Point Reyes’ Stellina, Café Reyes, and Cowgirl Creamery as well as a west Marin deli and whole food market.

Liz’s favorite thing about raising her crops—which makes for 12 hour days—is the satisfaction of feeding so many people, she says, about 2,000 a week.

The soap making idea came about when Moon Essence, a Petaluma salon, day spa and body and skin care product manufacturer, was making some wine scented soaps and Liz provided them with organically grown Zinfandel grapes for a Zin soap. “I said ‘why not carrot’,” she recalls. “They said ‘yes,’ and then it all just took on a life of its own.” Liz’s Gourmet Garden Soap line was born.

In addition to carrot, radish, and cucumber, there’s melon, rosemary, pear, lavender, even garlic—for the campers, she adds. It’s a natural mosquito repellent. Plum and peach are coming, and ladyfinger grape, an exotic grape variety.

Ted Giammona, owner of Moon Essence, where Liz’s Gourmet Garden Soaps are made, says that in a way her line has a seasonal aspect like a vegetable garden. For example, coming up with the fall harvest is a pumpkin soap.

Other flavors can be made year ‘round from produce that has been frozen, he adds, including pear, carrot, rosemary, and lavender.

In addition to being made of natural ingredients—like all the body and skin care products manufactured by Moon Essence—Liz’s line actually has the certified organic fruits, vegetables, and herbs (in a finely processed state) added right into the soap. Other ingredients include certified organic olive oil and coconut oil and purified distilled water and essential oil.

Remember to take a sniff the next time you’re at The Seed Bank’s checkout counter—if there are any bars left, that is.

You can find out more about Cow Track Ranch at www.cowtrack.net and about Petaluma’s Moon Essence Salon and Day Spa at www.moonessence.com. 

Sue Capella is a Northern California garden writer, photographer, and artist. She can be reached suecapella@gmail.com.

Clarington Forge Toolmaker

We have the late Alan Chadwick, a leading innovator of organic farming techniques, to thank for the fact that we can buy the best gardening tools ever made here in the U.S., including at The Seed Bank in Petaluma, CA.

In the sixties, when Chadwick was teaching French intensive gardening at the University of California at Santa Cruz, he wanted all his students to use the same tools he did, a treaded digging spade and digging fork handmade in his homeland of England by the infamous tool maker Bulldog Tools, says Robert Larsen, a San Francisco based importer of the finely crafted tools. Chadwick had a spade and fork shipped out for each of them, Robert adds.

These best of the best, hand forged gardening tools are sold nowadays in the U.S. under the Clarington Forge trademark, but they’re still made at the same location—Clarington Forge in Wigan, Britain—and in the same way they were over 200 years ago when brothers William and Henry Parkes founded the company in 1780.

Clarington Forge tools are all handmade with up to seven men crafting each particular implement as it is passes through 12 sections in the forge. This doesn’t even include the crafting of the classic hardwood handles, which are handmade in another area of the site and include a steaming and drying process that takes up to two days. And literature on this landmark company shares how proud Clarington Forge craftsman are to create such fine tools, many having worked there for a lifetime.

A “forge” is traditionally the workshop of a blacksmith, and in this instance it’s also the process used to create Clarington Forge tools, which are formed by heating and hammering the implements into shape, Robert explains. For the majority of their tools, the company uses Boron steel, which provides flexibility to absorb shock and durability to endure the pressure of hard work.

Most Clarington Forge tools are made of one solid piece of steel from head to shaft for durability that lasts a lifetime.

Gardener using a Clarington Forge spade

“If you look at how much time, effort, and energy it takes to craft these pieces, you’d be surprised that they don’t cost more than they do,” says Robert.

He says he’ll run into gardeners who have their 30 year old digging fork in the car with them—still in prime condition. These tools are “guaranteed for the life of the tool of defects in materials or workmanship,” he adds.

Check out our Clarington Forge line at The Seed Bank—we have weeding trowels, transplanting trowels, garden spades, weeding forks, hoes, rakes and more—or call us at the store at 707 509 5171 for more information about simply the best tools made.

Sue Capella is a home and garden writer, photographer, and artist living in Northern California. She can be reached at SueCapella@gmail.com

Cookbook authors Cathryn Couch and JoEllen DeNicola

Author and food activist Michael Pollan has given us “Food Rules” for choosing healthy foods and eating habits, and if you need some ideas on what to do with those fresh, whole foods you’re harvesting from your garden and filling your canvas bags with at the grocer, Cathryn Couch and JoEllen DeNicola can help.

The two Sebastopol women have authored “Nourishing Connections: The Healing Power of Food and Community,” a cookbook that provides the basics for creating healthful meals daily.

As Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company provides gardeners and farmers with heirloom, non GMO seeds for growing the most nutritionally potent—and flavorful—fruits and vegetables, Cathryn and JoEllen’s cookbook is designed to help everyone create delicious, easy to make dishes from whole foods for meals packed with the highest nutritional value.

In an organic nutshell, the idea is “to make it really easy to nourish yourself and those you love,” says Cathryn.

Yet Cathryn, a professional chef, former Director of Communications for The Hunger Project—US, and former manager for a home delivered meal service, and JoEllen, a nutritionist, holistic nutrition educator, and organic gardener, didn’t set out to write a cookbook. “Nourishing Connections” immerged as a natural next step in the ever evolving Ceres Community Project formed in 2007 out of Cathryn’s inclination to say “yes” rather than “no” (more about that later).

The Sebastopol based nonprofit provides delicious and nutritious whole food meals and community support to individuals and families touched by life threatening illness, sometimes for up to a year. The creators of these meals are mostly teen volunteers (although there are adult volunteers too), and the meals are made from the generous food donations of local farmers and grocers as well as through generous financial donations from businesses and organizations near and far.

Ceres Community Project was born out of Cathryn’s idea of donating the meals she and a friend’s daughter were cooking together to local families dealing with cancer—the result of Cathryn saying “yes” to the mother’s request for a summer cooking job for her daughter and of a fortuitous connection was made when Cathryn asked a friend in the local cancer support community if they knew anyone who could use help with meals. The girl’s mother donated the money to pay for the food, Cathryn donated her time, and what followed were three years of serendipitous events, including the generosity and perseverance of many in helping the Ceres Community Project evolve to what it is today.

“The vision was very clear,” Cathryn writes in “Nourishing Connections,” “and I sensed an elegance to it—the way that it addressed so many needs in the community and so many things that I cared deeply about. Young people would learn to cook. People who needed healing food would have it. We would help teach people about the link between what we eat and our health. And we’d help to restore the idea of caring for our neighbors, something that had been lost between my parents’ generation and my own.”

To date, Ceres Community Project has provided over 55,000 meals and taught close to 300 teen volunteers how to cook healthfully and how good it feels to do something for others.

Cathryn is the Project’s executive director and JoEllen, who Cathryn met when she attended one of JoEllen’s healthful cooking classes, is the organization’s nutrition director. Yet beyond their titles, these are two women are working hard to get the word out about eating healthily. “Our mission,” they write in their cookbook, “is to restore whole, local and organically grown food to its place as the foundation of health and healing for people, communities and the earth.”

Volunteers in the Kitchen

Also offered through the Ceres Community Project are cooking classes for those wanting to create healthy meals for their ill loved ones as well as general cooking classes open to the public. (Ceres, by the way, is the name of mythology’s Roman goddess of growing plants, the harvest, and mother’s love.)

The project is always looking for volunteers, both teens and adults, and donations of case load amounts of whole foods as well as monetary contributions are always welcome.

For more information about Ceres Community Project and the “Nourishing Connections” cookbook, visit www.ceresproject.org.

Sue Capella is a Northern California home and garden writer, photographer and artist. She can be reached at SueCapella@gmail.com.

Paul Greenberg NY Times Magazine and National Geographic Journalist

 Maybe you don’t give fish a second thought. You shop for fresh fillets at your favorite whole food market and enjoy a salmon dinner now and then. But if you attended food journalist Paul Greenberg’s talk at The Seed Bank last night, you’ll most likely look at this ocean-born food source a little differently from now on.

Greenberg, who writes for New York Times Magazine and National Geographic, spoke about his new book “Four Fish: The Future of the Last Wild Food,” sharing some real eye-openers, like the fact that “90 million tons of fish come out of the sea each year—the equivalent in weight to the entire human population of China.

“Wild fish seemed to be a crop, harvested from the sea, that magically grew itself back every year. A crop that never required planting,” said Greenberg, who spoke to a good-sized crowd as part of a series of author events The Seed Bank co-hosts at the store with Copperfield’s Books.

Also, added Greenberg, “in the fifties, only a portion of our oceans were fished. Now, the whole world is a fishing ground.”

And another interesting fact from Greenberg: “Per capita, fish consumption has doubled in the past 50 years.”

You can see where this is going: Our wild fish supply is becoming depleted. Greenberg illustrates this depletion in his book by focusing on four fish he could always count on seeing at the Connecticut Fish Market near where he grew up: salmon, sea bass, cod, and tuna.

At one time, he writes in “Four Fish,” as many as 100 million Atlantic salmon larvae hatched every year in the upper Connecticut River, making their way south to Long Island Sound, north to Greenland, and then back to the Berkshire foothills to spawn. Nowadays, due to overfishing and numerous dams, this healthy population is dwindling. The salmon we buy and eat today is all farmed, he writes. “Fifty percent of our seafood is farmed.” (And in a few years, this number will exceed the halfway mark.)

Attendees at The Seed Bank talk shared their experiences ordering salmon from restaurants here and on the East Coast from menus claiming “wildly farmed” and “organic” salmon. “There is no such thing as organic fish,” said Greenberg, (at least here in the states.) And as for “wildly farmed,” well, that descriptor got a big laugh from the crowd.

(Currently, a proposed pebble mine to be built near the waters of Bristol Bay, the easternmost arm of the Bering Sea, is threatening enormous Alaskan salmon runs, Greenberg also shared. Click here for more info.)

Greenberg's new book .

Greenberg, a life-long fisherman, is an enthusiastic, energetic speaker and a well-schooled expert on global fishing. His book provides land and sea reporting on the subject from Yukon to Greece and from Long Island Sound to the Mekong Delta. He shares stories of accompanying fishermen on fishing trips near and far as well as a plethora of information on aquaculture and the ecosystems of the wild oceans.

What needs to happen, stressed Greenberg, “is that we need to come up with a roster of farmed fish that don’t impede on wild fish.”

Wild fish need to be reframed as “something precious,” he added, just as deer are viewed as an “animal” and “game,” wild fish need to be redefined as “game.”

Paul Greenberg invited last night’s audience to continue the discussion and to direct questions to him at www.fourfish.com.

Sue Capella is a Northern California home and garden writer, photographer, and artist. She can be reached at SueCapella@gmail.com.

Kenwood beekeeper Randy Sue Collins with a honeycomb pulled from her Hex Hive.

Randy Sue’s newest creation is a hexagon shaped beehive. The only one like it in existence, she says. Called the Hex Hive, it consists of five “bee boxes,” an inner cover and a peaked roof. You start by placing the first two boxes on a stand with cover and roof and add on the rest as your swarm grows.

A beehive’s design—slightly offset hexagon‑shaped cells—is used in the engineering of airplane floors, says Randy Sue.

It’s designed for the comfort of the bee in the same shape as the hexagonal cells in a honeycomb, she explains. The popular Langstroth hive developed in the 1800s is rectangular for the beekeeper’s convenience, she says.

The densely packed matrix of hexagonal cells that form the front and back of the honeycomb are slightly offset, she points out. It’s such a strong design that it’s used in the engineering of airplane floors, she says.

Randy Sue’s first Hex Hive customer was John Lassiter, chief creative officer at Pixar and Disney Animation Studios. She also recently sold two to a New York interior designer. But you don’t have to be a mover and shaker to purchase one or have a lot of beekeeping knowledge. They’re easy to maintain, she says.

Randy Sue, a member of the Sonoma County Beekeepers Association, will even come get your hive started for you, and she provides beekeeping services as part of her business

Randy Sue’s beeswax candles and skin care and bath products can be found at The Seed Bank

Bees are a great resource for your garden, she says. They pollinate your plants; they give you locally produced honey, which when consumed helps people with hay fever type allergies; the hive helps populate the diminishing bee population; and it’s great for teaching families more about nature.

Randy Sue says her bees have taught her a lot, including patience, a greater respect for nature, that there’s a purpose for everything, and, bee lieve it or not, to be less judgmental. There are so many ideas and theories about bees, and so much we don’t know yet, she explains, and she’s learned to better accept that everyone has different opinions and ways of looking at bees and at everything in life. This acceptance is another way, like her business card says, to “bee happy.”

Sue Capella is a Northern California home and garden writer, photographer, and artist. She can be reached at SueCapella@gmail.com.

Comstock, Ferre & Co.—Wethersfield, CT

For Immediate Release
June 21, 2010

Today, Jere Gettle, owner of Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Co., based in Mansfield, Missouri announced the addition of Comstock, Ferre & Co, the oldest continuously operated
seed company in the United States, to its agriculture-related pure seed initiatives dedicated to preserving gardening traditions passed down through the generations.
Founded in 1820 by James Lockwood Belden as the Wethersfield Seed Company in Wethersfield, Connecticut,
the company was later renamed Comstock, Ferre after
the new owners. This company established the region around Hartford as a premier supplier of seeds for an entire nation and was responsible for the worldwide demand
for the Wethersfield Red Onion, which has become an honored icon for the Town of Wethersfield.
Located in the Historic District of Wethersfield, Comstock, Ferre is surrounded by splendid, meticulously maintained homes representing several important periods in American
history. Just across the street from Comstock, the First Church of Christ stands on the site where George Washington
attended church in 1781. Less than a block away, General Washington and Jean-Baptiste Rochambeau planned the final victory over the British to end the American
Revolution in triumph. The Historic District boasts over 150 structures built before 1850. The town itself dates back to 1634.
In harmony with the District and the historic flavor of the seed company itself, the new owners will operate the business as if it were 1820 all over again. Employees will dress in authentic 19th century costumes. Wherever possible,
the outward appearances of the modern era will be hidden to be more compatible with the 200-year-old tradition.
Jere Gettle and his family are dedicated to preserving this business by maintaining the historical buildings and their rich seed heritage, as well as the traditions that were such a part of the fabric of life in the 19th Century. The former owner and the Town of Wethersfield were concerned
that the buildings not be turned into a modern development, so they were pleased that the Gettle family committed to revive this near-museum of heirloom seeds and historic agriculture. Says Jere Gettle, “We hope to develop this into an East Coast garden and farm educational
center. With nearly two acres, we have plenty of room for such events. We also believe this will grow into a green- and agro- tourism destination, thus benefitting the surrounding community and its economic and environmental
vitality.”
Gettle went on to say, “With Connecticut having the highest rate of decrease in farmland in the nation—losing some 7,000 acres per year to development—
our historic company
hopes to help reverse this trend, with the help of thousands of gardeners and farmers.”
As always, Comstock, Ferre will offer its traditional brand of heirloom garden seeds through in-store sales, and will soon offer catalogs and online ordering. The store will also offer the Baker Creek brand of heirloom seeds, which is firmly established as one of the most trusted suppliers of open-pollinated, pure and natural, non-GMO seeds. The company intends to build on that reputation in concert with the Comstock, Ferre & Co. tradition. Another goal is to investigate the feasibility of re-establishing the Wethersfield Red Onion as a major variety, as well as working with local suppliers to offer seeds, gifts, plants, natural products, handmade arts and crafts, and food items.
Comstock, Ferre, & Co. will continue into its third century of service with a renewed dedication to green, sustainable
gardening, while blending harmoniously with the surrounding community.
The Oldest Continuously Operated Seed Company in America
Poised for its Third Century of Service
For more information, call 866-OLDSEEDS or 417.924.8917. Also, look for us on Facebook or www.rareseeds.com/blog.

The Spring Festival has grown from a first-year total of around 400 people to its present-day blockbuster size. Much of this growth parallels the growth of Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Co. itself. The 2010 seed catalog now boasts 1,400 varieties from all over the United States and the world, appealing to gardeners of all stripes.

Vendors offered around 5000 varieties of plants!

For those who have attended every year, the improvements from year-to-year are impressive. Parking lots and roads have been laid out and cordoned off to facilitate easy in and out. Baker Creek personnel use walkie-talkies to coordinate parking and visitor access. Several new restrooms and a new restaurant add to visitor enjoyment, not to mention the additions to Bakersville itself, with the numerous new animal enclosures, a pioneer cabin, and an operational grist mill.

 A special feature of each Spring Festival is the array of nationally accalaimed speakers who spoke on a broad range of subjects that are of interest to gardeners everywhere. This year, there were several standing room only crowds, who were entertained and educated by the topics that were presented.

 Emmy-winner Doug Oster spoke on Tomatoes, Garlic, and Basil, while Ken Roseboro warned of the dangers of Genetically Modified Foods. Kelly Norris, who started Rainbow Iris Gardens at the age of fifteen, spoke on familiar, but forgotten flowers and the passion that motivates gardeners. Dr. Jeff Nekola and Linda Fey from the University of New Mexico captivated audiences with their talks on the healing power of gardens and their life’s work involving the preservation and promotion of over 390 varieties of garlic. Oscar H. “Hank” Will III told the story of the Oscar H. Will Seed Co., a North Dakota company that spanned over a hundred years. Paul Wallace, from Baker Creek’s Petaluma, CA Seed Bank, talked on compost and mulch, two very topical subjects.

 Meanwhile, nearly a hundred vendors sold everything from plants, honey, and fresh-baked bread and pastries, to tack for horses, apple fritters, and homemade soap.

The Folk Music Contest drew musicians from far and wide.

 Numerous musicians, including Sourdough Slim, a perennial favorite, entertained appreciative crowds with Bluegrass, Folk, Gospel, and Country music. On 2 stages, music was continuous for over nine hours each day.

 At Sunday’s Costume Contest, the winners were 1^st Place Damien and Kaitriana Nissley from El Dorado Springs, MO and 2^nd Place Melissa and William Niednagel from Nottinghill, MO. At Monday’s Costume Contest, the winners were 1^st Place Awbra Trujillo from Clever, MO and 2^nd Place Rebekah Richardson.

 The Folk Music Contest is always a huge crowd-pleaser. The 1st place winner ($600) was the Blue Jeans Bluegrass Band from Schell City, MO. 2^nd place ($200) went to the Montana Family from Rovenna, TX.

Dozens of demonstrators displayed their crafts.

 Jere Gettle, the owner of Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Co., was extremely pleased with the turnout. “These events are so much work, but they are worth every ounce of effort. Visitors and Baker Creek personnel alike have such a good time.” What’s in store for next year? Gettle responded with, “More and better. Come and join us.”

 Photography by NateLuke.com. ©2010

Last spring Jere and Emilee Gettle, owners of Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company and Bakersville Pioneer Village in Mansfield, Missouri, were wading through piles of paperwork to make their dream of a West Coast location a reality. By June, they opened the doors of their newest store, The Seed Bank, in a grand 1920’s Roman Renaissance Revival style building on the corner of a bustling thoroughfare in Petaluma, California, within a 50 mile radius of half their California mail order customers.

Inside the Petaluma Seed Bank in Petaluma, California

The towering building with its elegantly curved façade and huge, arched windows had once been the Sonoma County branch of the Bank of America. Its new currency, non hybrid, non GMO (genetically modified organisms), non treated, non patented heirloom seeds, was a welcome form of “green.” Banks all over the country were closing, and organic farming and growing your own food were becoming even more popular with the environment , health , and budget conscious consumer.

“Everyday, people come in and are tickled by the fact that it’s a seed store in a bank,” says Paul Wallace, store manager and juggler of all Baker Creek’s West Coast business connections.

Gwen Kilchherr, in house horticulturist, with a customer.

“I was surprised at how fast people in Southern California and all over found out about us and how this has become a destination place,’ adds Gwen Kilchherr, in store horticulturalist, local gardening columnist, and radio show gardening expert.

Since it opened, “Baker Creek West” has sprouted and grown into a thriving business as healthy and wholesome as the plants grown from the company’s heirloom seeds. The number of heirloom seed varieties offered for sale has grown from 1,200 to 1,400. Gardening related items for sale line the shelves and walls and include fine, hand forged gardening tools from England based Clarington Forge, vegan gardening gloves, locally crafted handmade soaps, beeswax candles, and organic herbs and spices, and a gardener friendly line of how to books on everything from seed saving and seed sowing to organic vegetable growing and pest control.

Local photographs of Northern California’s bucolic farmlands and pristine open spaces as well as garden themed artwork and handmade quilts by local artisans grace the walls.

Yet, the real icing on the cake—or vegan doughnut—is what The Seed Bank has become to the community, surrounding counties, and even the nation. It’s an old fashioned meeting place that opens its doors to other like minded people and organizations, a place where people can gather and share the message that being kind to the land and eating healthy, organically raised foods is important, perhaps more than ever before.

It was with great excitement and much pleasure that The Seed Bank, in conjunction with local, independent bookstore Copperfield’s Books, hosted a talk and book signing by Michael Pollan, author of “In Defense of Food” and “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” in January, seating over 400 people amongst the store’s racks of seed packets. The store also hosted a local screening of Kirk Bergstrom’s “Nourish: Food+Community,” an insightful half-hour PBS special that discusses what we eat and where our food comes from.

Local non profit organizations, including community based organic farm, Petaluma Bounty, have held events beneath its soaring ceilings. Sonoma County Culinary Guild even hosted a members only, sit-down dinner for fifty, complete with elegant, white tablecloths, and Petaluma’s Live Oak Charter School recently held the store’s first art show featuring students’ agricultural  and garden themed artwork.

“It’s nice to have somewhere where people can come and feel at home,” says store manager Paul Wallace. And he expects the store will be holding more and more in store events and gatherings.

The Seed Bank, Bakersville Pioneer Village in Mansfield, Missouri, and the Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company Web site also provide educational opportunities for gardeners at all skill levels. At The Seed Bank, there are plans for in store horticulturalist Gwen Kilchherr to give more free talks on vegetable gardening as well as composting, insect and pest control, plant care, and preserving and canning tomatoes.

When you visit The Seed Bank, Gwen is also on hand to answer your gardening questions and can provide you with vegetable planting guidelines from local master gardeners.

Informational videos featuring Gwen, Jere Gettle himself, local farmers, organic food and sundry producers, and local chefs who use organic, locally grown foods are being shot by Petaluma video producer and cameraman Daniel Carmody at the store and in area locales to connect the community with other businesses supporting organic farming and healthful eating. (Look for these videos on this Web site and on The Seed Bank and Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company Facebook pages.)

“People who were buying their starts from the nursery are now wanting to start their own seeds and get more for their money,” says Gwen. “They’re finding they can do it. They come back more and more for seeds. They see the catalog and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.”

Paul Wallace assisting at customer at the Seed Bank

Store manager Paul Wallace says he’s assisted customers who have driven all the way from Southern California with heavily ear marked Baker Creek Seed catalogs, excited about buying their seeds in person. Another customer took orders online from a friend in Germany while pursuing the store, he adds.

For the Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company’s West Coast location there continues to be a constant buzz of activity and enthusiasm around growing non GMO heirloom seeds, organic farming, and just about everything that has to do with the healthful, affordable pastime of gardening—much more than the Gettles could have ever dreamt of.

The Seed Bank is located at 199 Petaluma Boulevard North in downtown Petaluma. If you’re in the area, stop by. This charming, historic town is also home to dozens of antique shops, art galleries, fine restaurants, and visitor friendly organic farms.

Sue Capella is a Northern California home and garden writer, photographer, and artist. She can be reached at SueCapella@gmail.com