A few weeks ago, I was at my college reunion. My Harvard classmates know I’ve authored several gardening books and that I am into organics, so naturally I got lots of gardening questions. No problem there. I never mind answering garden questions. It was like writing a column where I answer Alaska gardening questions.

I noted that after the World Trade Center went down, Alaska soil with its extremely high microbiology was used to restore the soil. I had sent a compost tea and extract made from Alaska humus. At the edges of the application, trees on one side of the street were sprayed with that liquid while the outer side of the street were not. No one thought much about this until it became clear the sprayed trees were growing much faster than those that were not. And, they were much healthier.

This was right about the time Dr. Elaine Ingham came up with the soil food web concept that a plant puts out exudates from its roots that attract bacteria that feed the plant. If a plant needs something else, it can change the exudate to get the right kind of bacteria that will supply the plant with what it needs.

To explain what was going on, Terry Fleisher at Harvard wrote a master’s thesis on compost. As a result of this thesis, my university started making and applying compost everywhere. All those test booklets, notes, food scraps and just about everything else that could be composted, actually was. So, it was a pleasure at my reunion to walk on a campus that no longer uses pesticides, and to know that I had something to do with this. Every plot of bare soil was mulched with compost. Things looked fantastic.

The bottom line is that compost is really all you need to get your plants into tip-top shape. You can make a compost tea, though the results are often questioned. Or, you can take a few handfuls of compost, wrap it in cheese cloth and knead it in a bucket of water. You will end up with what is known as a compost extract, which has higher microbiology than the soil that went into making it. This, applied to your gardens, is all your plants need to thrive and perform.

To make compost, you need a pile that is at least 3 feet cubed and composed of brown and green yard wastes. This pile does not have to be in the sun as it has nothing to do with heating the pile, since it is microbial activity in the pile that creates and maintains the heat.

It is astonishing that you can take waste material and reconstitute it into something so useful as compost. It is valuable stuff and you should be making your own. This may not be possible due to land constraints or the inability to get the right input materials. Fortunately, you can buy compost. If you don’t have the room or materials, you definitely should.

Use compost as you would mulch. Apply a layer a few inches thick as you would mulch. You might even put leaf mulch on top of the compost as it will speed up the mulch’s decay.

The bottom line is that if you use compost, you won’t need any other fertilizer. A compost-based garden should be your goal.

Jeff’s Alaska Garden Calendar:

Alaska Botanical Garden: Join to get the full advantage of this terrific institution. You will get all the announcements of events faster than waiting for me to put them in this listing. Every great city has a botanical garden. With your help, this will continue to include Anchorage.

Roses: All nurseries and box stores carry inexpensive roses. You supply the soil/compost and the appropriate size containers. You can treat these roses as annuals and toss them at the end of the season, or you can keep them over and use them the following year.

Starts: If you haven’t purchased yours, you better hurry up. There won’t be much available as we move into the summer season.

AP — 

A top Alaska elections official has threatened to disqualify from the state’s August primary a US Senate candidate who shares the same name and party affiliation as incumbent Republican Dan Sullivan.

Division of Elections Director Carol Beecher in a letter to challenger Dan Sullivan said her office had received two complaints regarding his eligibility and determined “that the preponderance of evidence does not support your eligibility for the office of United States Senator.”

She gave him a Thursday deadline to submit “any additional information and evidence” in response.

Sullivan, the challenger, did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment about the letter from Beecher, a registered Republican who in the past has donated to Republican groups and campaigns. Her letter, dated Wednesday and published by the Anchorage Daily News, did not specify the evidence it found to potentially remove him from the primary ballot, and her office did not respond to requests for comment.

Sullivan’s candidacy has caused a stir in one of the most prominent US Senate races in the country. It’s a seat Democrats have targeted as they try to regain the majority in the chamber in this year’s midterm elections.

Sen. Sullivan has accused his namesake challenger of working with Democrats to try to trick voters and boost the chances of his top opponent, former Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola, a claim both deny. The challenger, who lives in the small fishing community of Petersburg south of Juneau, told The Associated Press earlier this week that the decision to run was “my choice.” He said he had no contact with the Peltola campaign — “zero, none, zilch.”

This week, the challenger also pushed back in response to Republican Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom’s announcement that she was opening an investigation into his candidacy.

“The law forbids your office from denying me access to the ballot just because Senator Sullivan and the NRSC would prefer I not be allowed to run,” he wrote, referring to the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

He called the investigation “an unprecedented affront to my rights as a candidate and the rights of Alaska voters to select their own representation in the U.S. Senate.”

It was not immediately clear whether he had retained an attorney to help him remain on the ballot.

Some attorneys also have raised questions about Dahlstrom’s investigation, which among other things demanded that Sullivan explain his party affiliation, how long he had been going by the name Dan Sullivan, his affiliation with a consultant and any interactions he might have had with other candidates in the race or the Democratic Party.

Dahlstrom, who oversees elections, said in her letter to the challenger that the investigation pertained to “credible allegations” that he did not declare his candidacy “with a good faith purpose to seek office but rather with a purpose to confuse voters and have them mistakenly vote for you rather than the incumbent with the same name and same political party affiliation.”

The questions are in line with claims outlined in a letter to her and Beecher earlier this month from an attorney with the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

The ACLU of Alaska, in a statement, said it is “unaware of any other instance where the Lieutenant Governor has investigated a specific candidate for reasons other than determining whether a candidate meets federal, state and local eligibility requirements.” The group said it was monitoring the situation.

Jahna Lindemuth, who was an Alaska attorney general under an independent governor, said investigating why someone would run for office “starts infringing on free speech concerns and other protections under the Constitution.” She said Dahlstrom could label the senator as the incumbent on the ballot if she were concerned about voter confusion.

The Constitution requires senators to be at least 30 years old, a US citizen for at least nine years and live in the state they’ve chosen to represent at the time of election. Sullivan, who will turn 69 this weekend, told the AP he moved to Alaska in 1980 and worked for the US Forest Service before switching careers and becoming a teacher. He’s now retired.

The declaration that the elections division requires candidates to fill out asks for their name, the party affiliation they want on the ballot, their address and how they want their name to appear. In signing the declaration, candidates are asked to affirm they meet citizenship, age and residency requirements.

The division previously certified challenger Sullivan’s candidacy, noting him on the candidate list as Dan J. Sullivan. The senator is listed as Dan S. Sullivan and as the incumbent.

At least one group running ads in support of the senator, One Nation, has begun referring to him as Sen. Dan S. Sullivan.