Last Day of February

Avery is napping and Noah is playing quietly with legos, so what better time to sit and write a bit (much more tempting than scrubbing my stove top which is in pieces and soaking in Dr. Bronners, baking soda and borax). Today is the last day of February. The sun is shining on me and all throughout the house. I just checked for eggs and noticed that for the first time since October, the sun is shining on the doe pen. Xanadu and Rose were both standing in the sun nibbling on spruce boughs. 

In other news, I have a dying chicken in the hallway. I noticed her this morning all crouched and sunken in to herself. She wouldn't drink water and barely opened up her eyes. I know enough by now that she probably isn't going to make it. But she is one of our three Welsummer hens, and you know how much I love those hens and their beautiful eggs. I told Dustin I was bringing her in and he reminded me of my last attempt to bring a chicken in, (she convulsed and made quite a noisy, stinky, messy and disturbing departure). I pointed out that I did remember and had learned a lesson, this time I had put the sick bird in a disposable cardboard box with hay, instead of a large storage tupperware that would have to be cleaned out afterwards. I was hoping that I could get some water and herbs into her and she might make it. I added a drop of echinacea root tincture, a drop of grapefruit seed extract, a crushed clove of garlic and a large pinch of ground herbs (fennel, wormwood, garlic and black walnut) along with a little molasses to her water). Dipped her beak and she wouldn't drink ( I probably wouldn't either). So then I pried her mouth open and got part of a dropper full down her throat. I'll try again in another hour and continue over the course of the day. 


We have had two injured chickens this winter but they were perky. So for days I carried them to the waterer and they would drink, then I'd put them in a low box out of the way with a handful of food. They both are up and moving around now. Whenever I've seen a hen this unresponsive, they've always died, and fast too, probably by the end of the day. I hadn't noticed any suspicious behavior yesterday morning, and D had done night chores and not noticed anything. 

Noah and I started our first tray of seeds for the spring. I know it isn't time yet, for us Alaskans anyway. I do this every winter to hold me over, I start a few lettuce greens and herbs with the intention of transplanting them into a few pots and placing them in a window. This way I'll have little snippets of chives, basil, parsley, cilantro and greens here and there throughout the spring. It will be time to start tomatoes and peppers in a couple weeks. I did start some slow growing and germinating herbs (lavender, oregano and chamomile). If they get too big I'll transplant them before they make it to the garden. 


I have seeds on order from Peaceful Valley and thanks to a comment from another blogger, Fedco. I had never heard of Fedco before, but after checking them out, I am very excited about their prices and ethics. All I have yet to order are a few odds and ends, mostly onion, leek and shallot sets. I managed to stay away from most impractical temptations like melons, specialty peppers and most late season varieties. I allowed myself to go a little crazy on beet, turnip and rutabaga varieties, because they do so well here.When I told Dustin I bought several types of turnip and rutabaga seeds, he said as long as I wasn't feeding them to him... we are not big fans so it may seem silly to be growing them. One of the blogs I regularly read has been posting on feeding root vegetables to livestock, a practice that use to be common, but has since been replaced with high amounts of grain. I thought that I'd experiment a bit with adding a small amount of root vegetables to the goats and chickens diet and go from there. I already have quite a collection of early tomato, squash, pea, bean, kale, broccoli and green seeds. But I did find some new, or I should say old perennial greens that I had never heard of before that I had to check out. I also bought edible edamame for the first time, as we love it as a snack and I thought I'd make some space for it. I was excited to find an Alfalfa hardy down to zone one! As far as I know, no one grows Alfalfa up here because it doesn't survive the winters, so we'll be trying this hardy variety. 

My grainmill is somewhere in transit, on it's way here. I've used up all my old stale wheat, rye and spelt flours in anticipation...

I'm working on our second Azure Standard order, which contains more fun groceries than our first mostly bulk grain order. I'm ordering some beans and legumes for sprouting and grinding along with some specialty sea salts, and sugars (rapadura and maple), and lots of odds and ends I either can't find locally, or are cheaper in price and higher in quality.

I've been thinking of what defines spring here in interior Alaska. We don't tend to pay much attention to the official first day of spring, first day of summer etc. Spring is not green shoots of grass, mud, and especially not daffodils blooming (at least outdoors). Once we have mud and grass, well that's practically summer or the week before summer. Spring is the sun rising higher in the sky and shining with an intensity that warms my skin and lights the room, revealing the layer of dust that has been hiding in the dim rooms all winter. Spring is setting up plant racks, hanging lights and planting seeds indoors, the first touch and smells of soil - indoors. Spring is weather warm enough we can get out and play in the snow. Late spring brings goat babies and chicks. By then the seed starting rack is overflowing onto the floor and nearby level surfaces. By then we are too busy to debate, is it still spring or do locals sporting shorts and buying starts in a frenzy constitute the beginning of an arctic summer?

We've got about six weeks until kidding season begins and ducklings arrive. I'm looking forward to a few more cold weeks where I am more than happy to be around a wood-stove, baking bread, making soup and doing all those indoor projects (scrubbing and dusting) that won't get done till the slow days of next winter, or is it spring? 

Now I'm off to feed a hungry awake Avery, scrub my stove, make a smoothie for Noah and I, bake banana bread, force some liquid down my sick chicken and prep a whole thawed chicken for dinner. All the while enjoying the sun streaming into my dusty but well lit house, ah. 

The good and the bad

 

 Growing conditions here in interior Alaska are unique. We have a short growing season, long daylight hours and extremely cold winters. Our "official" growing season is just ninety days. Of course that varies with elevation and the use of season extenders. The recommended planting date is June first. First frost can be expected as early as mid- August, but early August is not unheard of.  Early finishers are essential to a productive garden, especially when it comes to heat loving plants such as corn, tomatoes, peppers and eggplant and melons. In general these crops need an early indoor jump start, raised beds, row covers or greenhouse covering, plastic mulch, fertile soil and heavy fertilizing to produce anything.

I grow about thirty tomato plants each year, mostly in my greenhouse (unheated hoop house) or in raised and covered beds. Early Bush Girl, Early Wonder and Early Cascade are my workforce. Then I grow one or two of a few heirloom or specialty varieties that I can't resist such as Sungold, Black Krim and Green Zebra. I don't plant any tomatoes that take longer than eighty days to reach maturity from time of transplant, and most of them are under seventy days. When you begin seedlings indoor in March and then nurture them until August and in return in you get one mature tomato, well that is a real bummer. A couple tomato plants that have not produced much for me are Paul Robeson, Pink Accordian, Black Pear and Orange Russian. I've gotten just a couple fabulous ripe tomatoes from these plants, just enough to wish I could grow them elsewhere.The green tomatoes off these plants don't even ripen well indoors.

Our long days help make up for the short season. There are days when the vegetables look noticeably larger than the day before. There are some plants that prefer full sun, but because of our long daylight hours, they do better here even in the shade, than you'd think. The main drawback to the long daylight hours is that some vegetables are prone to bolting, such as spinach and cilantro. Succession planting is the key to having fresh spinach and cilantro all summer. 

Interior Alaska ranges in zones from 1 to 3, maybe even 4 in a few hilltop micro climates.Our cold winters are tough on perennials. Our selection of perennial flowers, fruit bushes and trees is extremely limited. When choosing perennials I would recommend sticking with zone 1- 3 perennials. Furthermore, buy perennials locally. Head out to the local apple orchard (only one that I know of) and buy a tree from the guy who has been growing apples here for over twenty years. I plan on buying raspberry canes this summer from the u pick raspberry farm, rather than ordering or purchasing canes from the supermarket. That being said, we are still ever so tempted by the zone four Nanking Cherry shrub or zone four Peach tree that we saw in a catalog. There are certainly extra efforts you can take to make your fruit trees happier, such as digging extra big holes and filling them with lots of goodies. However, when we have a colder winter than usual, not even a super thick layer of mulch is going to save the tender non-native perennial.

My next biggest lament is that our winters are too cold to store even the hardiest vegetables in the ground, nor do the most insulated cold frames suffice come December. Let me know if you've had success, but I don't think you could insulate the outdoor ground well enough to dig carrots or beets in December. I've harvested hardy greens under row covers or in cold frames into November and then sowed greens in late March. I'm sure there is room for improvement, but I'm pretty sure it is a fact that unless you have a heated greenhouse, growing outdoors from December to February is unrealistic if not impossible. 

Cold winters discourage most fall seeding, depending on the type of seed and weather conditions. As far as fall sown cover crops go, my understanding is that the seed has a better survival rate if it does not germinate until spring. If you put down seed right before the ground freezes and it doesn't warm up again, and the snow falls, providing insulation, you may get lucky. The only crop we've planted in the fall with success has been garlic. We plant the hardiest hard neck garlic we can find and have been fortunate so far with it overwintering. We mulch heavily and have the added benefit of living in a protected micro climate. 

The good news: We don't have many pests or diseases to worry about. So when a seed catalog says that a plant is disease resistant, I couldn't care less.

There are a lot of crops that thrive here and they include cool weather greens, brassicas and root crops. Alaska is known for our fabulous carrots, other root vegetables such as beets, radishes, rutabagas, turnips and potatoes all thrive here without much pests other than root maggots. Broccoli, cauliflower, kale, cabbage and greens all thrive here. 

I succumb to the temptation of planting numerous varieties while lacking the organizational skills to successfully keep track of labels over the course of a summer. Last year I grew several types of Broccoli and was happy with all of them but wasn't sure what was what. The exception to this was that I was given numerous broccoli plants that I planted in addition to the ones I'd started and none of these plants ever produced broccoli, total bummer. Won't make that mistake again. I harvested over a hundred pounds of carrots this fall. The carrot that has done the best for me over the last few years in Early Sugarsnax. It gets over a foot long, but remains very crisp, sweet and tender. I also grew a row of mixed colorfull carrots with less success, but it was partially a location issue. Here is a pile of onions and a sampling of the colorful carrots I was thinning this August.

We wait as late as possible for the final root vegetable harvest. Sometimes when our ground freezes and it starts to snow, that is the end of it and the ground won't be diggable till spring. A couple years now I've scared myself by waiting to long. One year I had to plant garlic in the bed of potatoes that Dustin had broken up that day getting taters out. The rest of the garden was frozen solid. We pull carrots in a thinning manner all summer, and wait and wait until one day we panic and run around crazy digging and bagging root vegetables in a frenzy. Here are some of the sugarsnax carrots.

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When ordering or purchasing seeds for northern climate gardening look for key words such as early, vigorous, heavy producer, good for northern climates, short season variety. The first thing I look at after the picture of course, is how many days the plant takes to produce. You can't go wrong getting the earliest day variety you can find. Then you can always plant a little of something you can't resist.  A lot of crops that would be direct seeded in other areas get started indoors here. So if you are in Alaska pick up the Alaska Gardening Guide, or most greenhouses have seed starting guidelines for your area.

There are not too many areas in the world where you just drop seeds, water and reap enormous harvests. Every climate has it's challenges, too warm or cold, too many pests and who has perfect soil from the get go? As much as I moan about not being able to grow persimmons and peaches, we have the best blueberries (do I dare say in the world) and cranberries growing wild on our property. So I'll take the good with the bad, and better than making do, I'll appreciate what we do have.

Seeds and Seed Companies

 

The pile of seed catalogs is never far from reach these days. I sorted through my collection of seeds last week and made notes of what I needed; nothing really. I could get by just fine for years without buying any more seeds. However, what is the fun in that? I guess that means I get to try some new flowers and medicinal herbs this summer. Having said that I am going to put most of my effort into heavy producers. I am trying to resist late day vegetables, or novelties such as the melons that I find so irrisistable. I am trying to grow a balance of open pollinated and hybrid plants. I do like growing heirlooms and collecting my own seed, but their is also something to be said for vigorous heavy producing hybrids. Fortunately when it comes to seeds and other self sustainable investments, Dustin is totally on board. I never have to justify my seed orders. I do practice some restraint. I usually compile a large list of everything I want and then after adding up the grand total with shipping and seeing that my order is over the top for us, I then go back and cross out the items which I don't really have room for starting anyways.

My biggest seed decision is in deciding who to order from. In previous years I've ordered from Pinetree Nursery out of Maine, Irish Eyes in Washington, Territorial and Seeds of Change. I try to order from just one or two catalogs a year so as not to spend too much money on shipping. There is a lot of controversy out there about Monsanto and Seminis Seed Companies. Since Monsanto bought Seminis they are one and the same, however most catalogs acknowledge that they carry Seminis seed rather than Monsanto seed. What is so scary about Monsanto? Basically they own most of the worlds seed. They do not practice sustainable agriculture, on the contrary, they are responsible for products such as roundup and gmos (genetically modified seeds). It is challenging to find seed companies that are not owned or supplied by these companies. There are lists online of all the seed companies that buy seeds from Seminis and it includes a lot of the big ones. Last year I didn't order from Territorial, because even though they are privately owned they carry Seminis seed. It seems as though this year the seed companies are acutely aware that their customers don't want to support these huge companies. Searching online I found that some of the companies such as Territorial are disclosing the Seminis seed products that they are carrying so that consumers can avoid those specific seeds. It also shows that they are trying to reduce the amount of Seminis seeds that they are carrying. 

I enjoy knowing that my money is going towards small companies that are growing some of their own seeds. When I open up a catalog I usually read about the company and their farming practices. I also like to compare prices which can be tricky as you have to read what size the packets are and how many seeds they carry for each type of vegetable. This is the first year I have opened a Johnny's Selected Seeds catalog, and I can see the allure that the large companies such as this one have; large variety, great pictures and low prices. 

My favorite seed catalogs to look at are Seed Savers Exchange and Seeds of Change. These are also two of my more expensive catalogs. Generally I look at the pictures and then take my mental notes and order from a less expensive catalog. You would think that the smaller companies carrying a large proportion of organic seeds would be the most expensive, but I have found that Irish Eyes offers some of the best prices. The downside is that there is not as much variety to choose from.

Who am I ordering from this year? Well I am still undecided. I was initially going to try and order from just one catalog.  I just got a Peaceful Valley catalog for the first time. They offer seeds in their own name in addition to several different seed companies such as Seeds of Change, Renee's Garden Horizon Herbs. This may be a solution to the dilemma I have every year over who to order from as I can order from five different companies and pay one shipping fee.