Spring Planting Festival Speaker Schedule and Bios

Jim Long is owner and founder of Long Creek Herbs in Blue Eye, Missouri, and the author of more than 20 books on herbs, gardening and related subjects. Each year he grows 200 to 300 varieties of culinar and medicinal herbs collected from his world travels, along with with many Native American and Asian vegetables, hot peppers, figs, muscadines and more. Jim loves to share his knowledge of gardening, herbs, and cooking, and his presentations are always a highlight of any Baker Creek event.

Sean Williams is an author, educator, independent breeder, germplasm preservationist, and botanical explorer. He has introduced over 300 named varieties of grafted fruit trees to Central Illinois, including apples, pears, pawpaws, peaches, plums, and native persimmons. Botanical exploration has also enabled him to discover and introduce superior feral genetics to improve cold hardiness, drought tolerance, disease, and pest resistance in fruit tree varieties.

He has discovered several lost heritage varieties of fruit trees, including the Dearborn Seedling pear in 2020, a variety thought to be extinct.

Jon is a former Army Ranger, Iraq War veteran, world traveler, and relentlessly curious explorer of African and indigenous varieties and foodways. He is also the founder of Comfort Farms, a ground-breaking agro-therapy program in Georgia. He has been focused lately on developing an ‘anti-fragile farming system’ that doesn’t merely withstand shock but rather benefits from it. It is “designed to make our farming system stronger through adversity,” Jon says, “ ... this way of thinking also spills into our lives and everyday interactions by adopting a more anti-fragile mindset.”

Stephanie is CEO of Sunshine State Vanilla and a trained herbalist and clinical aromatherapist. She has almost single-handedly started a vanilla bean growing industry in Florida. In her talk, she will focus on vanilla as a new agricultural crop in Florida. You’ll learn why vanilla is so much more than a flavor and how to use it in the health and wellness industry. You will leave with a deep knowledge of Florida's history of vanilla and how to incorporate it into your life. 

Lofthouse transformed a challenging high-altitude, short-season desert garden into a thriving ecosystem of resilient food crops. By applying the principles of adaptation agriculture, he cultivates plants that flourish without the need for expensive chemicals, synthetic materials, or intensive labor. Instead of forcing nature to comply, he fosters genetic diversity, encourages cross-pollination, and selects for survival and adaptability. This approach empowers plants to adjust naturally to their environment — simplifying gardening, enhancing food security, and making seed saving a joy. Joseph shares his methods and stories in Landrace Gardening: Food Security Through Biodiversity and Promiscuous Pollination — an inspiring guide for growers who want to work with nature, not against it.

Join Joseph Lofthouse and Wren Haffner for an inspiring presentation on community seed saving—where flavor, diversity, and resilience grow side by side. Discover how shared stewardship of seeds can nurture deeper connection, abundance, and local adaptation. Through vibrant storytelling and hands-on wisdom, Joseph and Wren illuminate the joyful art of selecting and saving seeds that thrive in harmony with both people and place. Come plant ideas, exchange inspiration, and cultivate a future rooted in flavor and resilience.

Wren is a founder of Mountain Jewel Center for Earth Connection, a Missouri Ozarks-based project founded on the principles and ethics of permaculture. Their vision is “to build on the unique array of species and promote the cultivation of improved varieties of locally adapted plant stock.” Through an ongoing squash breeding project, Wren is developing a squash bug-resistant C. mochata and the Ozark C. mochata Grex.

For Los Angeles gardener Wendi Phan, plants are like an extension of her family. Through her Gardens of Wendiland, she provides organically grown herbs and low-maintenance living decors to homes and workspaces. Wendi also shares her knowledge and deep love for gardening – particularly exotics – on her YouTube channel.

Vincent (Antonio) Brazelton Jr. is  Senior Coordinator of Research Partnerships at JJKFAN, a public-private partnership aimed at transforming East St. Louis into a hub for urban agriculture and food systems innovation. The center’s mission is to offer programs in STEAM+Ag, food production, nutrition, and physical activity, empowering youth and community members through hands-on training and certification opportunities. By equipping participants with the skills needed to engage in sustainable food systems, the center promotes personal and professional growth, economic empowerment, and community development. 

A key element of this mission involves supporting culturally relevant, nutrient dense crops, such as collard greens (B. oleracea var. viridis).  Collards are a leafy green widely grown in urban farms across the St. Louis Metro region.  Despite their nutritional and ecological benefits, the root traits of heirloom collard varieties remain unexplored.  The goal of this project is to 1) document root system architectural diversity among 18 heirloom collard varieties and 2) develop a participatory breeding framework, for urban farmers and chefs to select varieties with optimized root architecture tailored to regional market needs. 

Antonio holds a bachelor's in plant and soil science from Tuskegee University and a master's in plant genetics from Iowa State University.  He is a PhD Candidate in the Plant and Microbial Biosciences program at Washington University in St. Louis.  As a researcher, Antonio is broadly interested in questions at the intersection of plant science and food equity in minoritized communities.  His dissertation work is focused on root system architecture in collard greens as a culturally relevant model for plant breeding in urban environments.