Festival Story

On the last weekend of April, 2006, Amanda, Scout and I piled into the old Pontiac and aimed ourselves north from our home in Log Cabin, Louisiana, for an eight-hour drive into south central Missouri. Up through Pine Bluff, Little Rock, and Conway, then up US-65 through Harrison and Branson, to Springfield, Missouri, before taking US-60 east for about an hour to the town of Mansfield, Missouri.

For the past couple of years, I’d been dealing with the Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company, one of the nation’s premier purveyors of “heirloom” vegetable seeds. The company was founded in 1998 by Jeremiath Gettle, “as a tool to promote and preserve our agricultural and culinary heritage”, and carries one of the largest selection of seeds from the 19th century.

Gettle, a long-time gardener, began planting his own little squash-and-tomato garden at age four. He soon began attending swap meets, offering his own seeds, stored in cardboard boxes and packaged in little handmade envelopes. In 1996, at the age of 16, he joined the Seed Savers Exchange, a national organization devoted to the preservation of old-time, heirloom varieties, and his dream of starting a seed company shifted into high gear.

The 17-year-old Gettle issued his first seed catalog in 1998, printing 550 copies of a twelve-page, black-and-white catalog. In the intervening eight years, his publication has grown to the point where 70,000 customers receive it each year, and over 900 varieties of unique seed varieties are offered.

Now that you’ve gotten a little background, you should know that Jere Gettle and his crew at Baker Creek host two Garden Festivals each year—one in April and one in August. Being a man of curiosity, intrigue, and adventure, I quickly talked Amanda into the eight-hour drive into the beautiful Ozark country of southern Missouri for the two-day event.

On Saturday, the day before the festival, we drove out to Baker Creek, probably seven or eight miles north of Mansfield, about half of that distance on a gravel road. Vendors were already beginning to set up their booths, and a large pasture had been dedicated to those who were planning to camp on the site. Although Jere Gettle was not immediately visible, we ran into one of his buddies, whose face I recognized from the current catalog.

“I’ve never met Mr. Gettle,” I said, “but I’ve noticed that, in every picture I’ve seen, he seems to be dressed up like one of those old “Sons of the Chuckwagon” singing cowboys. Does he dress like that all the time?” The friend, who attends college in nearby Springfield, laughed. “Not really. But, for the past few years, he’s been in a ’1950s Roy Rogers retro cowboy phase’. He usually stands out at the festival.”

We showed up bright and early on Sunday morning, for the first day of the event. Gettle had lined up nine outstanding speakers over the two-day show, and the vendors were already busily tending to the rapidly growing crowd, which filled the open areas around the Baker Creek Store. Three music stages had been erected, with great Ozark musicians picking, grinning, and yodeling like madmen.

Before thirty minutes had passed, I’d already bought a book on Ozark wildflowers, wandered through the collections of seeds, chatted with vendors about the heirloom tomato varieties I’m currently growing, and watched Scout clamber into an old chuckwagon that was pulled up next to a vendor’s tent.

As we wandered over to one of the music stages, we spotted Jeremiath Gettle, seated on a hay bale, listening to the music. He did, to put it mildly, “stand out”. Dressed in a bright yellow “singing cowboy” outfit, and accompanied by a lovely young companion (who, I learned later, was his fiancée, Emilee), the gregarious 25-year-old spent about ten minutes welcoming us to the area, and discussing his operation. The crowds continued to swell, and I posed for a picture with the couple, while Amanda and Scout had their pictures taken with a couple more of Gettle’s costumed cronies.

During the morning, we talked with all sorts of organic growers, tomato and small farming experts, and craftsmen and farmers of every stripe. We walked back to the store, where I stocked up on all sorts of great books.

After awhile, with the weather threatening slightly, but the crowds continuing to grow, we walked back to the car. A full tank of gas, and a couple of days to kill in this beautiful part of the world. We drove all over Wright, and Douglas, and Webster counties, where the towns are far apart, and the Ozarks go on forever.

We drove through the town of Mansfield, clean and neat, and home to some 1,349 souls, not including those of Almanzo and Laura Ingalls Wilder, who spent their adult lives in Mansfield and lie buried in the town cemetery. Passed by the modern Laura Ingalls Wilder Elementary School, and the library, which Amanda says was the beneficiary of the royalties from the Little House books.

Cruised through the countryside, stopping occasionally to shoot the bull with folks in a roadside store. Waded in a clear, swift-moving stream, and lolled on the banks to quaff a cold, refreshing, adult beverage. Looked at some property for sale, visited some neighbors, spoke to a lot of folks. Looked at each other. Drove home.

By the way, during their weekend in Missouri, George and Amanda bought twenty acres of land extending from a mountainside down into a valley, with a stream running through the middle. Looks like a good place to build a house and raise kids. Their new house is finished, and they can now be reached at: Bonne Idee Farm, Route 2, Box 237-3, Mansfield, Missouri 65704-9510.