Gettle

It is exciting and encouraging to see so much interest in preserving our heritage breeds of animals, pure food sources, and traditional arts, says Gettle.

Maria Rodale: The First Ever National Heirloom Exposition, Santa Rosa, California Maria Rodale 2011

Founder Jere Gettle, known to many as "the Indiana Jones of seeds," planted his first garden at age 3.

Maria Rodale: The First Ever National Heirloom Exposition, Santa Rosa, California Maria Rodale 2011

Revenue soared, and Gettle knew he had to move his scoops, boxes and drying racks out of the house.

SFGate: Top News Stories fletcher@foodwriter.com (Janet Fletcher 2011

"A lot of times there's not a clear history," says Gettle.

SFGate: Top News Stories fletcher@foodwriter.com (Janet Fletcher 2011

Raised and homeschooled by homesteader parents in eastern Oregon who later moved to the Ozarks to farm, Gettle describes a self-reliant household that produced almost everything the family ate, from vegetables to chickens to cheese.

SFGate: Top News Stories fletcher@foodwriter.com (Janet Fletcher 2011

"There's more demand than we expected," says Gettle of the Petaluma Seed Bank, the retail enterprise in a historic, high-ceilinged bank building that he and his wife, Emilee, opened in 2009 to supplement their operations in Mansfield, Mo.

SFGate: Top News Stories fletcher@foodwriter.com (Janet Fletcher 2011

With the opening of a retail store in downtown Petaluma and the publication of Gettle's first book, "The Heirloom Life Gardener" Hyperion, 2011, this entrepreneur from the Ozarks is the rising star of the seed-saving movement.

SFGate: Top News Stories fletcher@foodwriter.com (Janet Fletcher 2011

Gettle will join other seedsmen on a panel at the first National Heirloom Exposition, Tuesday through Thursday in Santa Rosa.

SFGate: Top News Stories fletcher@foodwriter.com (Janet Fletcher 2011

By the time he was 13, Gettle had noticed that some of the vegetables he loved to grow were disappearing from the catalogs, replaced by higher-yielding or more uniform varieties better suited to commercial growers.

SFGate: Top News Stories fletcher@foodwriter.com (Janet Fletcher 2011

His father and an Amish neighbor helped build a storefront, and the young Gettle began traveling the world - Mexico, Thailand and Guatemala - to collect seeds for his fledgling company.

SFGate: Top News Stories fletcher@foodwriter.com (Janet Fletcher 2011