In Oklahoma and the surrounding area almost every gardener knows about Darrell Merrell, the Tomato Man. His gardening shows on area television in the 1990s had many loyal followers due to his love of nature and natural open-pollenated plants and heirloom vegetables. In the late 90s he became very interested in garlic.

Darrell graduated from Jenks High School in 1957 and later graduated from the University of Oklahoma with a degree in history. He spent years as a stockbroker and trust officer and upon tiring of the formality of that business, he entered into the doughnut business and was known in Oklahoma City as The Doughnut Man for many years. He returned home to Jenks to care for his mother and sister and became disgusted with the bland store bought tomatos and became interested in growing great tasting old-fashioned open-pollenated tomatos like he knew as a boy growing up on the farm. He wanted to preserve the heirloom tomatos that just couldn't be found in stores anymore. He also became passionate about preserving the open-pollenated vegetables and other plants that had been supplanted by the commercial hybrid varieties that people had to buy new seeds for every year instead of saving the seeds from their own gardens produce.

Darrell was a big, jovial and outgoing man who wouldn't just talk about something, he would do something about it. He joined Kent Whealy's Seed Savers Exchange of Decorah, Iowa and spent a weekend there every summer as a volunteer helping to plant, grow, harvest and preserve the increasingly rare open-pollinated seeds of natural plants before they all disappeared. It was there that he met another volunteer, John Forbes Swenson, a Chicago lawyer and a well-known Allium expert who had been on a USDA expedition to the old Silk Road to gather garlics from the area where they originated and brought them to this country and told Darrell about his trip and these rare garlics and sparked an interest in him. He read my website and ordered some garlics from me and he read Chester Aaron's books about garlic and his interest blossomed and continued to grow.

Darrell liked Chester's writing style and personality and, being a man of action, he called him and they became acquainted and instantly became friends. Darrell decided he wanted to put on a garlic festival and called John Swenson and me and told us about it and John gave him the legal advice he needed to put it together. I wasn't so sure Tulsa had the demographics to make it successful and told him so but said if he would put it together, I would be there. He decided he didn't want to have just another garlic festival, he wanted his to be unique so he began to invite many well known experts and scientists and gave them an opportunity to tell the world of their studies and findings and most accepted. He named it The Garlic is Life Symposium and Garlic Festival, after Chester's book, Garlic is Life and scheduled the first one for the end of September, 1999 and made Chester Aaron the guest of honor.

After many months of careful planning, renting facilities from Oklahoma State University at Tulsa, lining up volunteers, lining up chefs from local restaurants, publicizing it in newspapers, on radio and on his gardening show on TV and a thousand other details, it finally became reality. There were about a dozen well known writers and scientists delivering talks on Thursday and Friday , a great garlic feast Friday evening and a garlic festival with three of the best known internet garlic growers selling garlic along with Darrell. The atmosphere seemed to glow and warm friendships were formed that would last a lifetime. It was so enjoyable and left the attendees with such warm glowing feelings that another was scheduled for the following year. The second symposium had half again more experts in attendance, a bigger dinner and an even better time was had by all who attended. It was so thoroughly enjoyed by all who were there that a third one was scheduled for 2001 but sponsors would have to be lined up as it was beginning to eat a serious hole in his savings account.

No one thought he could top the great 2000 symposium but, needless to say, the 2001 symposium was even bigger, had half again more scientists and experts as before and a lot more chefs and a fabulous time was had by all. Because of the uncertainty of the events of September 11, 2001, his sponsors suddenly pulled out on him with no advance warning and left him liable for the great expense of putting on the symposium.

There was no symposium in 2002 as it took Darrell some time to recover financially but a final one was held in 2003. While not as spectacular as the others and there was no Friday night garlic feast, it was very significant because Dr. Gayle Volk of the USDA in Colorado and Dr. Joachim Keller of Gatersleban, Germany released their findings from their respective DNA studies of garlic. These separate and unrelated studies both confirmed a new understanding of the structure of the garlic tree and negated earlier ideas of how the different garlics were related to each other and redefined garlic into ten distinct garlic groups based on their DNA structure rather than isozyme groupings. This was the first true and complete picture of the garlic family, a very significant botanical achievement.

In the final analysis, Darrell brought together more scientists and experts on garlic than had ever been gathered together at any one place before or since. He brought together distinguished biochemists, botanists, growers and experts in every discipline of science affecting garlic and the symposia redefined the way the world looks at garlic - a heady accomplishment for an Oklahoma farm boy. He will long be remembered and admired by garlic lovers all over the world for his great sacrifices in furthering the knowledge about garlic. Much of the valuable information in my website came from those lectures and personal conversations with many of the scientists at the symposia.

Over the years, the experts and notables he brought in include:

Thank you, Darrell, for being who you were and doing the things you have done. Many peoples' lives are fuller because of you.