Food self sufficiency is something any good Alaskan Sourdough knows a good deal about. And you use what you have to make your garden work. We’re not buying a bunch of fancy stuff, just making do with what’s around the place.
My first summer in our home (2015) I had high hopes for a bountiful harvest from my new (to me) garden plot. We even constructed a small greenhouse to help extend our season a little bit. I planted all sorts of things like potatoes, tomatoes, okra, herbs and squash. I was so excited! I mean, what could go wrong, I’ve been gardening most of my life and usually pretty successfully at that. Well, Alaska throws a mean curve ball.
Besides planting most all the wrong things, I had no concept of Alaska’s surprise hard frosts nor her relentless sun beating down day in and night too. And exactly how much water one needs to apply to soil that really never gets enough of the stuff. Neither did I appreciate how fast grass and weeds grow here.
To say that my first Alaskan garden was an epic failure is an understatement. It was so devastating, all that work, time and $$ down the drain, that I haven’t really gardened since, with the exception of a container here and there and cold hardy flowers. (I mean petunias.)
This year we’re giving it a full-on go again. Mostly because my oldest daughter wants to do it. It’s her project and I’m offering a little support along the way. At least she’s starting off with a little more experience in Alaskan summer weather cycle and what’s really best to plant here. And no, there’s no plan to grow okra.
She’s started out with measuring the garden fence to get an idea of how much electric fence we need plus square footage to plan out her scheme. She’s plotted 5 raised beds, hugelkulture style, and a variety of tire towers and containers around the perimeter. Plus an update to the greenhouse which needs a new skin.
Her planned crops include potatoes, sweet potatoes, onions, garlic, squash, broccoli, cauliflower, herbs, peas, radishes, blueberries, rhubarb, strawberries, raspberries and flowers, some edible.
There’s the existing compost pile (that Thing 2 made years prior for a science project) that she’s expanding to double the capacity. Plus she’s already made her strawberry bed with tires and shared plants from Nancy, our neighbor up the road. Nancy is the sweetest. She’s taken the girls under her gardener’s wing and been bringing them plants and sharing information (and ice cream too apparently) with them. This relationship I approve of, not sure about the ice cream tho. Lol
With each passing weekend we try and do a little more work on the garden prep. We are still frosting at night here in our little low spot at the bottom of the hill. So waiting to go to the greenhouse to buy plants, but soon we’ll take out a small loan to make the trip.
I’m very excited for Thing 1 and her goals of gardening and am trying to support her as much as possible but she really is doing most of the work so far. Plus she is carrying on the garden tradition of her Papa Alaska. Who certainly had it figured out with his two massive green thumbs.
We’re doing what we can to produce food for ourselves, in that old sourdough spirit.
Alaska on my mind... 