Skip to main content

WELCOME

Welcome to my first blog entry.  I’ll attempt to encourage you get a vegetable plot planted. Here in the Far North we are always and forever under the onus of questionable food security. If this is your first garden, please, think small. You don’t have to feed a third world nation, just your family, and if you’re a family of one why not harvest what you want to eat right outside your door? 

Choose the spot ~ not too far from the kitchen. That is one of many mistakes you can learn from me. Having gardened in Alaska for 50 years I’ve made many and am willing to share so you don’t have to make the same ones. For instance, our vegetable plot is on the only flat surface with good drainage that was available. That may seem obvious but that perfect spot is as far from the kitchen and still on our property as it can get. Maybe not a mistake, but not the most convenient location. How about those spruce trees? They offer dense shade so you’ll want to take that into consideration. Birch trees are a haven for aphids so keep away from them. Where has the snow drifted? It will be the last to leave so dodge that area. How about a prevailing wind? I think you get the idea. 


All that said~ we have arrived at that wondrous time of year when we can marry seed to soil, albeit either under lights or on your window sill. 

Get a fresh bag of potting soil, some containers and let’s get to work. 

You probably have your seeds and the ones you should be most interested in are tomatoes, artichokes, onions, shallots. These need an extra early start and pampering once they are up and running. I like to use a generous four pack for the tomatoes. Put two seeds in each cell. Once they come up you will choose the strongest and snip the other away or even divide them and have more tomato plants than you can deal with. That’s a live and learn situation. Tomatoes are weeds, they will thrive and produce an enormous amount of tomatoes. Thus, think about how many you want to plant. For the two of us there are four plants, each different. I’m not interested in canning, just eating fresh. 


I start two different kinds of onions:  Patterson is an excellent storing onion, achieves a nice size and is versatile; Red Wing is just that ~ red, zesty, beautiful and it too keeps well. What more can you ask for? Ambition is the shallot of choice. But to start all of these I use a larger container and sprinkle the seed on the surface of the damp planting medium, using more to lightly cover the seeds. The artichoke goes into its very own four inch pot because it will stay there for what seems forever, patience.


These are the plants that need an extra early start, get going. 


So, while I was in the Wagon Wheel getting fresh potting soil, I couldn’t resist the primula vulgaris right there on the counter. Every year I tell myself not to do it, that they will languish on the dining room table, that they will die before I can get them planted outside. Well, here they are again. Why not, why not add a splash of color to the almost end of February? Why not garner as much joy as possible before they look like they wish they never left the nursery they came from, thriving under perfect conditions with a steady supply of commercial fertilizer to meet their fate on my dining room table. Well, maybe this is the year for success. 






Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Rosemary Fitzpatrick, the Kachemak Gardener

Having arrived in Alaska May, 1972 I have had much to contend with on the gardening front.   The impetus to start gardening can be traced directly to empty grocery store shelves in 1973 due to a Teamsters strike. That was a wake up call.  The first garden was on a gravel pad in Eagle River, the second in Wasilla. That one was rounded out with two goats, a flock of chickens and our two children. The third in Homer, where we settled in 1978, is the spot where much was learned.  Starting in 1990 I have written the Kachemak Gardener in an attempt to encourage new gardeners and those of you who have tried and failed.  Stick with me, let’s get you gardening.
3 comments
Read more

The Well Watered Garden

I’m thinking about bringing in the potatoes. There are only a few plants out there and the two that I’ve already pulled had truly huge tubers. The ongoing problem is storage but we will consume them ‘tout de suite’. Nothing like new potatoes.  The carrots, Bolero, are once again excelling. But they will need to be pulled sooner rather than later. The weather needs to cool off so our innovative storage solution can be implemented (please read that with your tongue firmly in your cheek). I don’t like to move plants around in the fall, I think they need more time to settle in so that task is usually carried out in the spring. But here we are ~ moving dwarf red twigged dogwoods that appeared in the perennial garden from roots that were left over from the last time we moved the original plants. There’s always something. We added them to the established three nestled in below the larch, the more the merrier.  This will be the year that more bulbs are planted under the shrubs. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Going to Seed

Here is something I’ve been thinking about: seed saving. I hardly ever save seeds. To me the plants are throwing their seed here and there and don’t need any help from me. But, if I were to be a little more in control, a little more selective, and a little more organized it would be a boon.   So, the thalictrum (meadow rue) is in full seed and I have been deadheading, if I don’t there will be millions of these lovelies come spring and we all know about too much of a good thing. Thalictrum seed heads are beautiful. The cutting down of them is actually painful, the loss of all that beauty at a time of year when we are savoring every single second of available loveliness seems like a crime. There have been years that I didn’t cut them, thinking the warblers would make use of the seeds. Mistake. So this year I am diligent.  But there are those of you who save seeds. Well, sure.  But when a plant sends out seeds it means that is the perfect time to get them on/in the gr...
1 comment
Read more