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John Coykendall's work to preserve heirloom seeds is the subject of the documentary "Deeply Rooted"
and can be viewed in its entirety for a short time on Lousiana PBS.
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For nearly four decades, John Coykendall’s passion has been preserving the farm heritage – the seeds and stories - of a small, farming culture in Southeastern Louisiana and this work is the subject of a new documentary from Louisiana Public Broadcasting.
John Coykendall is a renowned heirloom seed saver, a classically trained artist, and Master Gardener at Tennessee's Blackberry Farm, one of America’s top farm-to-table resorts. Since 1973, he has made an annual pilgrimage to Louisiana, where he has recorded the oral histories, growing techniques, recipes and folktales of Louisiana farmers and backyard gardeners in more than 80 beautifully illustrated journals. He has saved and safeguarded rare varieties of the crops they once grew, and handed them back to the communities where they came from.
"Seeds carry with them more than the potential to sustain people as food, they are living history of the people who cared and tended to them and cultivated them and passed them down. I feel 100-percent total obligation, I am the caretaker," believes Coykendall. "This is what we’re working to save, this history, the heritage, the way of life, the way of farming, way of cuisine, everything to do needs to be preserved while its still here to be preserved."
This documentary is nominated for two 2017 Suncoast Emmy Awards and is being nationally distributed by American Public Television. Contact your local PBS station for broadcast information.
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| Pages from John's journals of the oral histories from farmers in the Washington Parish, Louisiana. |
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