The Life’s Work of a Master Gardener

For nearly twenty years, John Coykendall has been the man behind the rows of heirloom tomatoes, beans, and corn at Blackberry Farm, the lavish epicurean resort in Walland, Tennessee. The 74-year-old master gardener and Tennessee native is also an artist who draws inspiration—literally, in dozens of sketchbooks—from his explorations across the South and in particular southeastern Louisiana, where Coykendall has traveled each year for more than four decades. A new documentary, Deeply Rooted: John Coykendall’s Journey to Save Our Seeds and Stories, shares not only Coykendall’s own life story, but also many of his memories and drawings from those trips of discovery.

Photo: Sarah Weldon Hackenberg

Coykendall shows some of his prized field peas.

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Photo: Sarah Weldon Hackenberg

Heirloom tomatoes at Blackberry Farm.

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Photo: Sarah Weldon Hackenberg

Coykendall is originally from Knoxville, Tennessee, and has worked at Blackberry Farm for nearly two decades.

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Photo: Sarah Weldon Hackenberg

Pages from one of Coykendall’s sketchbooks.

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Photo: Sarah Weldon Hackenberg

Coykendall holds speckled beans.

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Photo: Sarah Weldon Hackenberg

Coykendall has filled more than eighty sketchbooks during his visits to Washington Parish, Louisiana.

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Photo: Sarah Weldon Hackenberg

Coykendall has visited rural Louisiana for more than forty years to spend time with generations of gardeners and learn about their heirloom plants.

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Photo: Sarah Weldon Hackenberg

Drawings and notes from one of Coykendall’s sketchbooks.

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The film follows Coykendall throughout an entire year of travel, planting, growing, and harvesting in both Tennessee and Louisiana’s Washington Parish, where centuries-old varieties of butterbeans and cowpeas grow in backyard gardens and a place Coykendall considers a botanical Eden. Interspersed throughout are pages from his more than eighty notebooks filled with sketches of speckled beans, sweet potatoes, and okra seeds, along with interviews with Southern food luminaries including G&G contributor and Southern Foodways Alliance director John T. Edge and the Louisiana chef John Folse. All told, it’s a worthy tribute to Coykendall’s legacy as a small-farms flag bearer and one of the South’s most persevering seed savers. “The seeds that grow our food are part of our cultural heritage,” says Deeply Rooted’s producer, Christina Melton. “They have been saved by our ancestors and passed down to us. If we let them go, it’s on our watch. John talks about this all the time—‘I can’t let these things be lost under my care.’”

Look for the film on PBS affiliates around the country this fall and winter, but for G&G readers, Louisiana Public Broadcasting is also making it available to stream for free for the next two weeks. The documentary is also available for purchase on DVD or as a digital download.