A keeper among heirloom catalogs

With January come the seed catalogs, most of them uninspiring and predictable, page after page of tomato varieties that all look alike. Typically they lie around for a week or two, get shuffled to the bottom of a pile, eventually end up in a milk crate in the basement, last stop before the recycle center.

An exception is the 2007 Pure Seed Book from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds. Their Tenth Anniversary Edition will stay on top of the pile for quite a while. First of all, the cover is a work of art, a painting of watermelon harvest by full moon, complete with billy goat standing on melons loaded in the back of an old pickup truck. Nearby a bearded farmhand in overalls cajoles a skunk away from the outhouse, keeping his distance. Raccoons watch from the knot hole of an old tree while possums hang by their tails at the end of a branch and a hoot owl, perched where branch meets trunk, lords over all.

Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds is truly a family affair. D. L. Gettle, mother of Jere Gettle, the company’s founder, is the artist in the family, creating the catalog covers as well as numerous variety illustrations. This substitution of paintings for photographs is one of the charms of the catalog. For example, the top third of the carrot page is a triptych of three varieties: Lunar White, Atomic Red, and Amarillo (a lemon-yellow variety). Reading the variety descriptions, you learn that white carrots were grown in the Middle Ages, but now have become very rare, while yellow carrots are among the sweetest.

This is the essence of Baker Creek’s mission, re-introducing heirloom varieties from around the world; the catalog devotes substantial space to introductions of varieties from South America and Asia. I was pleased to discover that Baker Creek offers three varieties of hyacinth bean (Dolichos lablab), an Asian bean that I have grown in the past as a vigorous ornamental vine that will reach 10 feet in height in one season. Its large, flat purple pods, used in Asia as a curry and stir-fry vegetable, make a striking color combination with the lilac-colored blossoms and purple stems. Baker Creek also offers varieties with purple-red and white flowers. (This bean also has a long history in the United States. Thomas Jefferson planted it at Monticello.)

I plan to also order seed of an Asian melon variety called Collective Farm Woman, an heirloom from the Ukraine. The yellow-gold melon has white flesh with very high sugar content and it ripens early, a must for melons in Maine. And then there is Tigger, a vibrant yellow melon with brilliant fire-red, zigzag stripes, also from Asia.

If only I had more garden space, I would order a cowpea variety, Purple Hull Pinkeye, a preferred variety of many Southerners. I have fond memories of summer days on the back porch of my boyhood home in Georgia, shelling Purple Hulls for the evening meal. This is what heirloom varieties are all about!

For information about Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, see their Web site: www.rareseeds.com, or write to Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, 2278 Baker Creek Road., Mansfield, MO 65704.

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