Amy Stewart

SAVE THE DATE: April 14th, 2009
In cooperation with Copperfield Books we are pleased to announce that Amy Stewart will be speaking at the Seed Bank in Petaluma, California on April 14th at 6pm.

We are excited to have her join us and share from her new book Wicked Plants. I (Emilee) read it from cover-to-cover and love Amy’s take on this sometimes overlooked world of the plant kingdom. It is an alluring book and very informative. Check out the book trailer below for a small sampling of this garden thriller!

Visit Amy Stewart’s website at: www.amystewart.com

Sales are at a record level, thanks to you, our long-time loyal customers, as well as all you new customers. We know that our satisfied clientele are spreading the word and we’re grateful for that.

Seed packets and updated shelving.

In each of the past two years, our sales have doubled—that’s what every business dreams about, but we’re mindful of the old sports analogy: “you don’t want to out-punt your coverage.” Frankly, it was hard to keep up with the demand.

So, to address the frustrations that we all felt at times, we used the proceeds from those super years to invest in infrastructure. Here’s a brief summary of what we’ve been doing to speed up order processing and improve our overall customer service.

By popular demand, we alphabetized all varieties so they would be easier to locate in the catalog and online. We also implemented a new online shopping cart that gives you a visible running total of what you’re ordering, as well as being better organized.

Our new Customer Care Center, with its fourteen offices and state-of-the-art computer and communications equipment, including a facility-wide fiber optics star array, have greatly improved our ability to take phone orders rapidly and efficiently.

Chris operating our new seed packing machine.

Until this season, all our seeds were hand-packed. In July, 2009, we purchased a $70,000 packing machine, built to our specifications. Now, we can pack over 30,000 packets in a two-shift day.

This output capacity created another problem, however: Where would we put all those seeds? The existing warehouse is too small to hold both bulk seeds and a year’s supply of packaged seeds. So, we built a 10,000 square-foot warehouse to stage the packaged products. This warehouse is also wired into the local area network for future use in bar-code inventory control and the like.

2009 had its share of creature comforts, too. We completed the Asian-themed Earth restaurant that is operated on a donations-only basis. This is a unique, non-profit dining experience that is for the benefit of our customers. And we don’t want to forget the addition of several species of exotic chickens and another breed of sheep in our animal exhibits.

The Spring Planting Festival is slated for May 2—3, 2010. Come on out and hear our world class speakers, listen to a smorgasbord of country, gospel, bluegrass, and Americana music, and choose from an enticing array of products from the vendors.

Thanks again for your business and good will. We appreciate each and every one of you, and we will continue to seek new ways to serve you.

-By: Jerry Orton

A beautiful salad mix. Produce abounds in California during the dead of winter!

Over the past few weeks of our stay in Petaluma we have had the wonderful opportunity to tour several local, organic and sustainable farms in the surrounding area. It has been wonderful to meet so many interesting people and take a walk in their shoes, so to speak. We toured Terra Firma farm last week and enjoyed learning about their operation; we were also invited to Skywalker Ranch and the gardener gave us an inside look at this amazing property closed to the general public. We also visited Occidental Arts and Ecology Center in Occidental, California where Sasha was thrilled to eat fresh Romanesco Cauliflower right out of their garden. (I think she misses our home garden about as much as we do!) We also visited Laguna Farms, which is the largest CSA in the area.

San Rafael Farmer's Market

In between our farm tours, we have been hitting every farmer’s market in the area that we can. We love to go to San Rafael’s Sunday market. There are hundreds of vendors with fresh produce, flowers, plants, bread and hand made items as well. The citrus has been wonderful as well as all the leafy greens. We love all the fresh winter produce (we long for it at home in snowy Missouri) and the wonderful atmosphere at this local market.

Mouth-watering citrus

Standing room only in the Seed Bank!

Feb. 3, 2010: It was a great evening, and so nice to be in a room with over 400 like thinkers. It was so fitting that Pollan spoke at The Seed Bank, surrounded by thousands of packets of heirloom seeds, the beginnings of the purest foods available. I loved his simplest advice from his newest book “Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual”: “Don’t eat foods your great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize,” and “Don’t buy foods with more than five ingredients.” They’re such easy rules to remember.

One new approach for me, however, will be: “Avoid foods making health claims.”  Pollan’s insights on the claims made on cereal boxes brought this one home though. Cereal makers are actually claiming that their breakfast “food” filled with 40 percent sugar “boosts immunity.” It will also be a personal switch to avoid low-fat and “lite” foods, opting to eat less of the real thing instead–another of Pollan’s food rules.

Michael Pollan shares his Food Rules at the Seed Bank

Pollan’s audience at The Seed Bank definitely resonated with his most general rule:  “Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.” He encouraged planting a vegetable garden, even in a window box, though I’m certain he was surrounded by some of the Bay Area’s most avid veggie gardeners.

“Cook” he told us. That’s the best way to stop eating processed foods. He got a big laugh when he suggested not eating any foods that come at you through a car window, alluding to fast food. And it was wonderful to hear eating food described as “a communion with others and with nature.”

Michael Pollan signed copies of his books at the end of the event.

I’m now even more inspired to eat natural and whole foods, at a table, and in good company . Thank you Jere and Emilee Gettle for a rare evening in a rare location surrounded by rare seeds.

Sometimes, though, this can mean unintended consequences, as happened last night. January and February are typically our peak months, and this year we’re experiencing another large increase in orders. The volume of Internet orders was so great last night that our credit card processing company simply couldn’t keep up.

The problem is fixed now, and our IT guy is working to make sure it never happens again. If you’re one of the folks who tried placing an order last night but was unable to get credit card approval, please don’t give up on us. We value your business and will find a way to make sure you are happy. We’re in the process of contacting everyone who had this problem; we will make it right. Meanwhile, if you want to give it another try, go ahead–everything should be fine. If you prefer to phone-in, mail-in or fax your order, that’s fine too.

—-with Jerry Orton

Jere Gettle and Dave Kasier preparing for a catalog photo shoot last spring.

We’ve already been on the search for new and exciting heirloom varieties to grow-out this season in hopes of saving enough seed to share with you, our customers. With these long winter nights it’s the perfect time to dig through our resources  and search for varieties nearing extinction. We are getting antsy for Spring that’s for sure!

Jere and Emilee along with all of the staff at Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company both in Mansfield, MO and Petaluma, CA wish you and your family a blessed Christmas and a very bountiful New Year. Thank you for your support as we continue to preserve rare seed varieties from extinction.

Long story long: it took a LOT of doing! Planning rare seed grow-outs, getting seed in and writing descriptions was only the beginning!

To get the 2010 Pure Seed book out earlier, it had to be designed and laid out earlier, which is a pretty major undertaking all by itself.

Then, this season we went to a completely new format for the website, rareseeds.com, building it from the ground up. That includes a new shopping cart, which had to be tested and which required a little fine-tuning.

New colored packets for virtually every variety, creation of an enhanced wholesale program to get our seeds into the hands of retailers coast-to-coast, moving every bin in the store to accommodate the new line of seeds–it was work, work, work around Bakersville.

But now it’s done. There’s plenty of details left to go, but everything is in place for 2010. And we’re glad to do it, because it means putting more heirloom, open-pollinated varieties than ever before, into the hands of gardeners all over the world.

We’re glad to do it, but we’re sure glad it’s about done!

Join us for the most exciting heirloom garden festival in the nation!

Once again we have an exciting line-up of garden speakers for our 10th annual Spring Planting Festival! Sunday and Monday, May 2 & 3,  2010, 10am – 7pm!

Take a look at who is joining us this year…

Jeff Nekola
Renowned PhD. & Naturalist

Kelly Norris
Author & Horticulturist

Doug Oster
Author, TV & Radio Host

Cheryl Long
Editor in Chief: Mother Earth News

Therese Ciesinski
Managing Editor: Organic Gardening

Paul Wallace
Manager of Petaluma Seed Bank

Check out our newly added Guest Speakers page for more information and bios! Mark your calenders and join us for the most exciting heirloom garden festival in the nation!