I was just looking for a good tasting tomato, the kind we grew when I was a kid on the old home place. That was back in 1991 while I was a 24-hour, 7-days-a-week care giver to my mom and sister. Through the Seed Savers Exchange, I found the seeds I wanted plus hundreds more.
In late 1993 and early 1994, I had some decisions to make. Mom and Sis had passed on. I needed income but I didn't want to go to work for someone else or rent a space to start a business. I started peddling used books every Saturday at the Tulsa Flea Market. It finally dawned on me that is gardeners could get the type of tomato plants I was growing they would surely love them just like I did. The nurseries were selling hybrids and they don't have the flavor of the old-time, open-pollinated heirloom varieties that I grow.
I grew about 2,000 tomato plants to see if they would sell. One Saturday on the "Front Porch" of the Tulsa Flea Market at the Fairgrounds, Karen Keith "discovered" me. Karen asked if she could do a segment. She did and as they say, the rest is history.
Since then, Karen has done numerous segments, including live broadcasts from the Tulsa Home & Garden Show and the KJRH-2 Early Morning Show (live for three years running on April 15th to kick off tomato growing as a cure for the tax blues.) There also have segments on OETA's "Oklahoma Gardening" with both Brenda Sanders and Sue Gray, and I have appeared on Paul James' garden and cooking shows on HGTV.
In 1995, I became interested in garlic, by happenstance. A friend of mine, Charles Shaver, loved garlic. I ordered six heirloom gourmet varieties to plant for him. The first month after harvest I ate more garlic than I had previously in my entire life. It was delicious, mellow enough to eat raw. Wow! I was hooked.
As I had with tomatoes and other vegetables, I began a collection of books on garlic. One of the first was Chester Aaron's Garlic is Life, A Memoir I was fascinated with his story and his knowledge of garlic. Looking back, I can now say it is a book that changed my life.
On September 10, 1998, I phoned Chester. We had a 40-minute conversation. Chester told me he had been in Oklahoma during "The War" and had always wanted to come back but didn't have any reason to do so. Without forethought, I blurted out, "Well Chester, I'll just start a garlic festival and you can come back as the Guest of Honor." He thought I was kidding and so did I, at first.
The more I thought about it, the more I became enthralled with the idea. I called John Swenson, a friend of mine through the Seed Savers Exchange and recognized authority on alliums, and told him of the idea. He jumped at it. But have not only a festival, he suggested but also a garlic symposium attended by all the "top names" in the world of garlic. I proceeded to call several other garlic growers. They all thought it was a splendid idea.
On September 14, 1998, I called Chester for a firm commitment. At first, he was flabbergasted. "You're really serious!" "Yes, I've got several growers committed, now I need a firm commitment from you." After a few moments of thought, "Let's go for it!"
The First Annual Garlic is Life Festival &
Symposium was held in Tulsa,
October 14-16, 1999. The Second Annual event was held October 10-14, 2000 and the Third Annual event is scheduled for October 30 - November 3, 2001.
Since 1991, I have read extensively on gardening and the food we eat. When I was a youngster, my family raised and processed a great portion of the food we ate. I have become convinced that the food we eat now is not as good as the food we ate then. It is not as flavorful nor is it as nutritious. We call fast-food restaurant food "junk food." I think 90 percent of the food we buy at the grocery store could also be labeled "junk food."
The majority of the food we eat today is grown in mono-crop environments: huge fields, hundreds and thousands of acres of just one crop. Beef, swine, chickens, etc. are raised in gigantic feed lots. Chicken and swine are confined individually in a space hardly large enough for them to turn themselves around. Vegetable crops are saturated with chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides. Meat crops are injected with steroids, antibiotics and who knows what else while being grown in unwholesome, unsanitary conditions. I have seen cattle in feed lots waddling in mud and manure almost up to their bellies.
We live in a fast-paced world. We cannot learn about or possibly become experts in every field of knowledge. We have to live by faith, faith that the "authorities" are telling us the truth. It becomes a habit to take the word of authorities and experts in the field of health.
I think we should not take our food for granted. That's my mission, to remind people that we should get out of the habit of accepting the healthiness of the food we eat just because it is there on the grocer's shelf. In my own small way, I do this by offering and encouraging gardeners to grow some of their own food with open pollinated plants nourished by organic gardening methods. I am a charter member of the Cherry Street Farmers Market, in order to encourage market gardeners to grow vegetables by this method and to encourage shoppers to buy locally from local growers.
Wonderful garlic can be grown for market sales right here around Tulsa, Oklahoma. This is where the Garlic is Life Festival and Symposium comes in. Its purposes:
- To heighten the awareness of garlic.
- To encourage Oklahoma market growers to grow garlic
for retail sale.
- To encourage shoppers to buy locally grown garlic.
- To provide information on growing garlic, marketing garlic, cooking with garlic, and the health benefits of garlic.
- To provide a national and eventually, an
international forum for garlic lovers everywhere to gather to meet
each other, to exchange knowledge and ideas and to have a lot of
invigorating fun while doing so.
