There’s a whole world in a seed.

We’re a family-owned seed company rooted in the Missouri Ozarks and connected to farmers and seed savers around the world. We offer more than 1,300 heirloom seeds and unusual open-pollinated varieties, with a simple purpose: keep good seeds growing and put them into more hands.

Our crew brings together different cultures, skills, and life stories. Whether you tend a farm or your very first flowerpot, you belong here.

Open-pollinated, untreated, non-GMO seeds. No patented varieties. A two-year seed guarantee and free shipping on U.S. orders.

Baker Creek began with a boy’s love of gardening and a hand-drawn 1998 seed catalog. That small beginning grew into gardens, seed shops, colorful catalogs, and festivals.

Today, Jere and Emilee, their five children, and a wonderfully varied crew keep the story growing—preserving rare seeds, sharing good food, and welcoming more people into the garden.

Jere Gettle planted his first garden at three, grew vegetables beside his grandmothers, and learned to read with seed catalogs. Before long, he was collecting varieties that were getting harder to find.

At 17, he made a 12-page catalog for the 1998 growing season. His mother drew the illustrations. The hand-stapled, black-and-white booklet offered about 70 varieties, and some 500 copies went out to friends, family, and fellow seed savers.

Today, we mail nearly 1.5 million catalogs and fill up to a million orders a year, carrying on the grand old tradition of the seed catalog—garden dreams delivered right to your mailbox.

Our story reaches back through generations of farmers and homesteaders, with roots in Europe and Mexico. His grandmothers, Bertha and Opal, nurtured his love of growing things. Steeped in the Seventh-day Adventist faith tradition, Jere’s family embraced agriculture, pacifist beliefs, and a back-to-the-land way of life: tending the soil, living simply, and lending a hand to neighbors. That heritage still shapes our work, and there’s room at our garden gate for people of every background.

A seed packet holds a season’s worth of hope. Every incoming seed lot is checked for purity and moisture, and every lot of heirloom seeds is tested for germination twice a year. Our testing includes an independent laboratory and greenhouse work in Seymour, Missouri. Seeds stay in cold storage until packing.

Good seeds are a promise between gardeners. We aim to go beyond federal standards, researching, growing, tasting, and testing to find the very best for your garden. Trial plots help us study growth, flavor, color, size, and whether plants match their descriptions. If a rare variety falls a little short of our own germination guidelines, we tuck in a generous helping of extra seeds and clearly label the packet—so you have plenty to get growing.

Two-year seed guarantee

For two years from purchase, if something isn’t right, we’ll replace it or refund it—no questions asked.

Read the Two-Year Satisfaction Guarantee

Free U.S. shipping

Whether you are trying one new variety or filling a whole garden, U.S. orders ship free.

Need a hand?

Reach our team at seeds@rareseeds.com or (417) 924-8917.

Gardeners, scientists, cooks, artists, storytellers, and the patient folks who answer your questions and pack your orders make up our crew. Different cultures, languages, and life experiences bring fresh ideas to the garden and the kitchen.

On the farm, our crew turns a remarkable seed collection into living gardens. In the kitchen, the team’s culinary traditions find their way onto the plate. Behind the scenes, careful hands tend seedlings, test seeds, and help gardeners get growing.

We learn from one another every day. Around here, an unfamiliar vegetable can be the beginning of a recipe, a friendship, or a whole new adventure.

In Japan, our team builds connections around seeds, food, and growing traditions. In India, seed-saving partners help preserve heirloom vegetables. In Ghana, seed growing goes hand in hand with permaculture education. In Kenya, we work with smallholder growers. In Mexico, preservation work keeps regional melons, chiles, and corn growing.

Learning goes both ways. We share what we know and make room for knowledge carried by others. A seed’s story is richer when the people who know it best are part of the telling.

We give away about a million seed packets a year to help more people grow. Schools, community gardens, and projects serving people in need are part of that work.

Our giving also reaches beyond seeds through food projects and humanitarian fundraising. The same idea runs through it all: when we have something useful to share, we ought to share it.

Preservation takes ongoing care. Our breeding team uses classical plant breeding and careful selection to maintain historic varieties and develop new ones. Projects range from richly colored radishes to compact tomatoes and old-fashioned flowers. No genetic engineering is used.

It is patient, hands-on work: caring for old treasures while helping tomorrow’s heirlooms take root.

Open a seed catalog and let the next garden take shape. Our Rare Seed and Whole Seed catalogs bring together varieties, photographs, growing ideas, and the people behind the plants. Behind each finished page are gardeners and photographers, careful tending, the right light, and plenty of muddy shoes.

Jere and Emilee’s books, The Heirloom Life Gardener and The Baker Creek Vegan Cookbook, carry the conversation from garden to kitchen. Our videos and growing stories keep it going, one curious plant at a time.

Mark the pages, pull up a chair, and dream a little.

Our 125-acre farm near Mansfield, Missouri, is our home, our growing ground, and our gathering place. The Gettle family settled here in 1993 on the old Rippee homestead. Its 1906 farmhouse is where Baker Creek began.

Today, gardens, greenhouses, and the village of Bakersville bring the seed catalog to life. Take your time here. There are plants to discover, old-fashioned buildings to explore, and plenty of ideas to carry home to your own patch of earth.

Bakersville grew around our love of gardens, traditional buildings, and community gatherings. The old homestead, mercantile, flour mill, and village storefronts give the farm its familiar character. Seasonal gardens and heritage animals add their own life to the place.

Held in late September each year, our National Heirloom Expo brings gardeners together to celebrate remarkable harvests, meet fellow growers, and keep good seeds alive.

Our new exhibition barn gives the Expo and other gatherings a permanent home on the Missouri farm, with more room to share the color, variety, and delight of the season’s harvest.

The Flower Festival

Held each April, this colorful gathering celebrates a world in bloom, with fellow gardeners and plenty of inspiration to take home.

Flower Festival dates

Spring Planting Festival

For almost 30 years, gardeners have gathered each May to celebrate seeds, gardens, and sharing what we know. Come gather ideas for the season ahead.

Planting Festival dates

Come taste something new. From local melons to tropical fruits, our Summer Fruits Festival celebrates the delicious diversity of the growing world. Sample the harvest, discover an unfamiliar fruit, and find a flavor worth remembering.

Bring your curiosity and an appetite for discovery.

Find dates, tasting details, and the full program for all four gatherings on our Festivals page.

Baker Creek Restaurant brings the garden to the table with vegan meals inspired by the people who prepare them. Farm-grown and local ingredients meet a wide world of flavors.

We’re open for lunch Monday through Friday, but may be closed on very cold or icy days or holidays.

Nearby Seymour is home to our 105,000-square-foot packing and shipping facility, along with important seed-quality work. This is where a great deal of patient, practical work turns the garden’s possibilities into packets ready for your mailbox.

In beautiful downtown Petaluma, California, our Seed Bank offers the full seed collection along with books, tools, and garden discoveries. We opened in 2009 in a former bank building and later moved down the street. The name stayed, and so did the love of putting seeds into gardeners’ hands.

Our five-acre research farm in Ross Craig, Portland Parish, looks out toward the sea. Our local team grows and studies plants such as Malabar spinach, snail vine, and cassabanana, while expanding a collection of rare Jamaican fruit trees. Breeding work connects the Jamaica and Missouri teams, and relationships with schools and 4-H groups help share the experience.

Questions, comments, or a good garden story? We’d love to hear from you.

Join our team

We’re always glad to meet enthusiastic gardeners, media professionals, and folks with all kinds of useful skills. Tell us what you love to do and send along your résumé.

Media inquiries

For interviews, photographs, or help with a story, write to us with “Media inquiry” in the subject line.

For all inquiries, email us:
seeds@rareseeds.com