Alaska

Alaska gardening myths busted

Published

8 months ago

May 9, 2024

Internet news feeds have obviously discovered gardening subject matter as some of the very best clickbait, but it seems it is worst this time of year.

While I have resisted, obviously many of my garden writing comrades take up the offers and produce this stuff. These are not easy to write. They have to hold enough hort interest to get you to come back after the first click and all the clicks thereafter.

If I had to write clickbait for this paper — oh, come on! — I know one topic to tackle: gardening myths, specifically Alaska ones. Let’s see how that might go.

Let’s start with tomatoes. The Alaska myth is that you need an outdoor greenhouse in order to produce fruit here. The basis for the myth is that flowers won’t set if the temperature at night dips below 55 degrees.

Actually, tomato plants can tolerate lower temperatures, down to 40 degrees in fact, as long as it doesn’t stay that cool for too long. What really happens is that the pollen production in flowers drops drastically when it is below 50 degrees; you don’t get nearly as many chances for flowers to be pollinated.

Ah, but you can grow tomatoes without a greenhouse. Buy starts and preferably large plants with some flowers, if possible. In any case, keep the plants in a spot where night temperatures won’t drop all the way, like up against a south-facing house wall or in a privileged spot on the deck. If it is going to get really cool, cover with a cloche, Reemay cloth or, if you must, plastic. Other tips: water only in the morning so the soil can heat up all day and use mulch around the plants to hold in the day’s heat.

And there are the “Russian” tomatoes. These were bred in some far northern Soviet gulag and can tolerate, thrive actually, in much cooler temperatures. Smuggled into places like Alaska, “Glacier” is the most famous, but look for tomatoes with “Polar” in the name.

Next myth: the spruce bark beetles have stopped flying and are no longer a threat to Southcentral tress. This is not true, though the number of affected trees in recent year is decreasing. The past years’ outbreak killed trees on 2.17 million acres.

There will be very big headlines on this column when spruce trees are no longer a problem. If you have any spruce, and who doesn’t, this is the time of year to check out www.alaskasprucebeetle.org. Do so as soon as you finish reading this column. You can get suggestions for replacement trees and a review of steps to keep your trees healthy and free of infestation.

Another myth has to do with potatoes, a favorite Alaska crop. Do you need to hill them? No, it is a myth. Instead, place yours on a layer of soil or leaves in a large container like a garbage pail. Then fill the container with leaves all at once instead of incrementally as the plants grow. Just ask friend, Kodiak gardener Marion Owen if this works.

Another great myth is not to water foliage with cold water on a hot day as it will burn the plants’ leaves. The drops of water supposedly act as a magnifying glasses and will burn a hole. No, they won’t. There would be a lot of destroyed plants after any thunderstorm if this myth was true. It is best, however, to water the soil around a plant and not its foliage.

And, finally, the biggest Alaska gardening myth of them all is that you absolutely have to fertilize your lawn every spring. In fact, in almost all cases you don’t ever need to fertilize your lawn. Running over winter’s debris and mulching it in as well as not bagging clippings each mowing is all your lawn really needs, along with watering of an inch or two a week.

Jeff’s Alaskan Garden Calendar:

Alaska Botanical Garden: Have you joined this year? Every great city has great gardeners and a great botanical garden. We are blessed as you will see by visiting even just the garden’s website.

Traditional planting day: If you go by tradition, Memorial Day weekend is planting-out weekend. Remember plants grown indoors need a week to harden off, i.e., acclimate to the outdoors. A few days in wind-protected shade and then in dappled shade should do it.

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Related Topics:Agriculture climate change Featured Planting

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Alaska

Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport busy with holiday travelers

Published

45 minutes ago

December 23, 2024

Press Room

Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport busy with holiday travelers

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) -Many of the people arriving to and departing from Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport Sunday agreed that Anchorage’s main airport isn’t as tough to navigate as most right now.

On Dec. 22, three days out from both Hanukkah and Christmas, travelers at the airport were lined up, checking in, waiting for baggage, or going through security; all of those, demanding a wait. However, several travelers told Alaska’s News Source about their experiences and what they were expecting during their flights.

Matt Howard departed from Raleigh-Durham International Airport in North Carolina around 5 a.m. “It was the busiest I’ve ever seen it,” Howard said. He estimated he touched down in Anchorage around 6 p.m., adding Ted Stevens was much “less frantic” than the other airports he was at, but thought the evening time frame might have been a contributing factor.

Flying in from Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta, Georgia, Kimberly Lamar said she visits her mother in Alaska at least once a year.

“It was pretty overwhelming, trying to get through from Atlanta,” she said. “Then I got to Seattle; it was hard to get through to the gates of Seattle. And finally, this is the easiest airport I’ve actually been in all day.”

Born and raised in Alaska, Gideon Mahoney was traveling to Colorado where he recently relocated. “I’m actually really surprised, right now it’s easy and we were a little late, so…” Mahoney said, glancing at the line for security.

Growing up in Alaska, Mahoney said flying into Denver International Airport can be overwhelming at times.

“We’re working on figuring out how to deal with that,” he said. “We’re getting it.”

As for travelers who haven’t left just yet, Lamar’s advice was aligned with a prepared statement from Alaska Airlines: both said arriving early is the key for holiday travels.

“If you’re flying, make sure you leave early because those lines are crucial,” Lamar said.

See a spelling or grammar error? Report it to web@ktuu.com

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Alaska

Hydroponics provide year-round growing for Alaska farmers

Published

9 hours ago

December 22, 2024

Press Room

Hydroponics provide year-round growing for Alaska farmers

On a recent December afternoon, Soldotna farmer Taylor Lewis preps for a day of harvesting crops. She walks to a tray filled with ripe lettuce and snips a head of it by the stem.

It’s just one of about 900 plants that Taylor and her mother-in-law Jayme Lewis will harvest and process this week – despite freezing temperatures and slushy snow outside. That’s because the duo works for Edgy Veggie, an indoor farm that grows produce year round.

“In the summer, a lot of our business drops off because folks are gardening at home. But in the winter, they’re not, because it costs money to heat your greenhouse,” Jayme said. “It costs a lot of money to heat your greenhouse.”

The company is a hydroponic farm, meaning they grow plants without soil. Hydroponic systems recycle and reuse nutrient-filled water, which minimizes waste. Specially made lighting and climate controlled conditions make it possible for Edgy Veggie to grow indoors during the winter months.

Climate controlled grow rooms like this one at Edgy Veggie in Soldotna make it possible to harvest greens and herbs year-round.

Around Thanksgiving, the company harvested 150 pounds of lettuce, enough to make about 800 salads. That took two days and was one of their biggest hauls of the year. Although not a typical harvest for the company, Jayme says she does see an uptick in business during the winter when Alaska’s produce is almost exclusively shipped up from the Lower 48.

“If you go to the grocery store and pick up a head of lettuce right now, by the time you get it home it will be wilted,” Jayme said. “That’s sad. Literally, that’s sad.”

Jayme says some local restaurants have sourced their vegetables from Edgy Veggie because they last longer and are fresher than grocery store produce.

Nestled between two train cars-turned-restaurants on the other side of town, Henry Krull walks inside his shipping container farm. He points to a wall that’s growing hundreds of bunches of butter lettuce.

Krull is the owner of fresh365, another Kenai Peninsula based hydroponic farm. Just like Edgy Veggie, the farm operates entirely indoors.

“The advantage of growing indoors, in a container like we have, is that we can control the environment,” Krull said. “We can grow no matter what’s going on outside. It can be 30 below outside, but it’s always 70 degrees or so inside.”

fresh365 also sees an uptick in direct-to-consumer sales in the winter. Otherwise, most of their sales go to other businesses, like local restaurants.

Lettuce sprouts, like these seen at Edgy Veggie in Soldotna, are placed in a specially designed watering system and grown without soil.

And while indoor farming means fresh, local produce year-round for Alaskans, it faces a number of challenges. Krull says growing in a hydroponic setting is much more expensive than traditional farming methods. So, to offset his farm’s energy costs, he installed solar panels, which were partially funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Energy for America Program, or REAP.

But, Krull says the property doesn’t get much sunlight in the winter.

“The sun is a very valuable commodity, it’s valuable for not only producing electricity, but it helps to lower the energy costs,” he said. “And the energy costs of the farm containers we have is actually very, very high, because we can’t take advantage of the sun.”

Edgy Veggie, on the other hand, doesn’t even have solar panels. Jayme says their energy costs are high year round.

“Electricity, especially, is outrageous,” she said. “I wish that the state had some sort of option with the electric companies to help support farming. We’re providing a service to the community, honestly. We’re trying to, but it might run us out of business.”

Other challenges to hydroponics include faulty pumps and timers, ventilation issues and water leaks. Like traditional farming, hydroponic farmers say it’s backbreaking work.

fresh365 owner Henry Krull says the hydroponic farm recently started growing mushrooms, like — fresh365 owner Henry Krull holds a box of lion’s mane. The hydroponic farm recently started growing mushrooms alongside its greens and herbs.

But, for farmers like Taylor Lewis, offering fresh and local produce year round is a labor of love.

“Being able to supply our community with anything fresh is great,” Taylor said. “What we have as options in the grocery store – it’s not cutting it.”

“These belong in every community,” Krull said. “We’ve been able to prove that as a business model, it works. You can make a profit doing it, you can provide a good service to your community, and I think we can really do good for our community by providing something that is not readily available on a year-round basis.”

According to the U.S Department of Agriculture, only 5% of food Alaskans consume is grown locally. The state also has very short growing seasons.

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