Stories
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We are proud to present the newest heirlooms to the illustrious lineup at Baker Creek! Our seed team has searched across the globe and from greatest gardens of the past to assemble a stellar collection of open-pollinated varieties. We are delighted to share our collection of curiosities, from the rare, exotic and whimsical to the time-honored treasures plucked from the annals of heirloom history.
Innovative Vegetable Introductions
Picture a garden bursting with tasty vegetables; with these prolific,
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MEET DAVE KAISER
Whether you are driving down US Highway 60 or perusing a Baker Creek Seed catalog, you surely must have seen a photograph of our own David Leroy Kaiser, more simply known as Dave. While he has been a fixture around Baker Creek since the inception of the company, he has recently achieved “celebrity” status as the star of Baker Creek silent films.
Dave was
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My name is Mathieu Asselin. I am a New York-based freelance photographer. For the past three years I have been working on a photographic project --Monsanto: A Photographic Investigation, which documents more than a century of history of the Monsanto corporation. I am interested in documenting the social and ecological consequences of its relentless behavior, which dramatically affect many communities, and, in aggregate, the entire planet.
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THE ROUGHWOOD SEED COLLECTION
The Roughwood Seed Collection, which now comprises about 4000 varieties of heirloom food plants, was begun informally in 1932 by my grandfather H. Ralph Weaver (1896-1956). During the depths of the Great Depression, when food was scarce for many households, he set out to feed his family from a one-acre plot in West Chester, Pennsylvania that he eventually transformed into a kitchen garden of impressive scale. Since he had been working on the Weaver family genealogy, with d
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GOING PURPLE
BY SHANNON MCCABE
America’s industrial food system has waged war on our most fundamental means of nourishing ourselves. Vegetables once celebrated for their nutritional content have been stripped of their superfood status and reduced to merely a flavorless vessel for pesticides. Supermarket produce aisles are bursting at the seams with these sad vestiges of a war waged on healthy produce. Factory farming has robbed the people of their most basic and affordable medicine: healthy food. For thousands of years, humans h
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WHAT TO PLANT THIS SUMMER
BY SHANNON MCCABE
Too often gardeners are swept up in the impetuous whirlwind that is spring planting season, feverishly turning over, planting, and transplanting the garden once the soil can be worked. A good start right out of the gate can be a nice thing. Who doesn’t love to revel in the glory of first tomato of the season bragging rights? Succession planting all season long will provide a consistent flow of produce throughout the season and can be just as important as that first mass planting in spring. Easier said than done. Who can think of planting that late crop of
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SEASON EXTENSION: THRIVING IN WINTER
BY SHANNON MCCABE
Some people see winter time gardening as a gambler's game. I prefer to look at it as an opportunity to experiment and learn how to work with the weather... not against it. My first foray into winter gardening was typical of a coastal New England farming experience, blustery and bitter; one of the coldest seasons on record! The farm I was working at was situated right on a salt pond and the cutting wind chapped your face and desiccated even the most vigorous plants. Battling the winter to eek out greens, carrots and beets felt, at times, like an insurmountable feat. However, those greens and roots were by far the most satisfying and intensely
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THE AMAZING YOKOHAMA SQUASH
BY RANDEL AGRELLA
Until the mid-19th century, Japan was seen as a mysterious Oriental land, closed to most westerners and virtually all Americans. In the 1850’s, with Commodore Perry’s forcible “Opening of Japan” the situation changed dramatically. Japanese trade goods and art became available, captivating the imagination of a generation of Americans.
Plants were part of the cultural avalanche. One such is Yokohama squash, a superior winter squash that had evolved through centuries of painst -
The Whole Seed Catalog
356 pages of gardening joy!
We're proud of our annual Whole Seed Catalog, bursting at the seams with so many features! On the cover of the past 2016 Whole Seed Catalog was a picture of the beautiful