320: Shannon McCabe on Heirloom Seed Stories.
Documenting the histories of seeds in Baker Creek Catalogs.
Shannon is a writer who found her passion melded beautifully with farming and growing heirloom vegetables when she landed the perfect job as the farm manager and catalog writer at Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company. She has traveled the world as a seed explorer for Baker Creek, from cycling the tulip fields in Netherlands in search of rare bulbs, to the remote jungle markets of the Peruvian Amazon in search of rare fruit.
Shannon co-writes the award winning Whole Seed Catalog, and dreamt up the Baker Creek children’s gardening book. She has enjoyed bringing the arcane heirloom vegetables of our past back to the foreground of the gardening discussion. Shannon strives to make growing heirloom varieties approachable to every gardener, from the children who read her kids books, to the large scale organic farmer reading her variety descriptions in the catalog.Don’t miss an episode! Click here to sign up for weekly podcast updates
In This Podcast:
Traveling the world to get the unique seeds and document their stories – a dream job for a writer and gardener like Shannon McCabe. She tells us a little more about how she got started working for Baker Creek Seeds and some of the perks of working for a visionary like Jere Gettle. She also shares about the upcoming Seed Expo in California in the Fall and the donation program for non-profits and school programs.
Listen in and learn about:
- What Baker Creek Seeds is and what they offer
- 1800 varieties of heirloom seeds
- The award-winning catalog book
- Building the descriptions to help garden planning
- Moving to Missouri to start working for Baker Creek as the Garden Manager
- Working for Jere Gettle, the Willy Wonka of seeds
- The green house in Pioneer Village
- The genesis of Baker Creek and how it has evolved since 1998
- The Epic trip to Europe just because the flight prices were low
- Finding an amazing bulb saver in the Netherlands at the peak of Tulip season
- Her list of traits of what to look for when looking for varieties for your area
- Purple carrots, white tomatoes, mini-watermelons, and French cabbage
- The National Heirloom Expo in Pioneer Village, including a squash tower!!
- Seed donations program to help not-for-profits and school programs
- The Kids book to help motivate
- How to get a seed variety into the Baker Creek Seed Bank
Book written by Shannon:
A children’s magazine – Amazing Seeds
How to reach Shannon:
Website: RareSeeds.com
Email: seeds@rareseed.com Attn: Shannon
Instagram: @seedscavenger
Facebook: Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds
Mailing Address: Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, 2278 Baker Creek Road, Mansfield, MO 65704
UrbanFarm.org/BakerCreekStories
Don’t miss an episode! Click here to sign up for weekly podcast updates
