Category: Regions of Alaska

Growing Honeyberries (Haskaps) in Alaska

 

Honeyberries, or haskaps, are a unique berry. Honeyberries have a huge range in shape, size, productivity, taste, timing and evenness in how they ripen and how easily they come off the bush. The taste of honeyberries is often compared to other berries. I think the taste is unique, and you should try them and make your own comparisons (or not) with other berries.

I have written several articles on berries and they are roughly in order of my personal preference: first, on cultivating wild blueberries, next strawberries, then raspberries and then currants. So now I’m tackling honeyberries or haskaps, so they are my fifth favorite berry. They would be sixth if you include cloudberries, but I’m not going to write about cloudberries since they are generally not cultivated, although there may be ways to protect and promote their growth in the wild.

Haskap bushes with ripe berries on them.

Some berries require full sun, a narrow pH range and well-drained soils. Honeyberries tolerate partial shade, wet soils and a wide pH range. Their pruning requirements are more manageable than other types of berries, and they won’t take over your backyard with thorny bushes like raspberries tend to do. What’s not to like about a berry that is easy to grow, cold-hardy, highly productive and ripens earlier than most berries?

Continue reading

Growing Fruit in Alaska — Apples, Cherries, Plums, and Pears

 
sarah in pink shirt and steve pictured in orange with arm around sarah
Sarah and Steve Masterman in their garden. Photo by Elisabeth Swift.

Steve and Sara Masterman grow fruit outside of Fairbanks, Alaska. I had the pleasure of interviewing them about their decades old orchard in Fairbanks. I was blown away by the depth of their knowledge of growing fruit in a cold climate. Steve described it as an addiction.

Steve grew up on a 12 acre farm in Wales, United Kingdom. His family raised cattle, chickens, turkeys, ducks and had a small orchard. He couldn’t believe he when heard about a guy growing apples off of Chena Hotsprings Road. He had to see it for himself and soon bought his first two apple trees from Clair Lamers.

It was 2007 and those were some of the last trees Claire sold. Claire was the master fruit grower in Interior Alaska for many years and taught Steve how to graft.

Continue reading

Meet the 19-year-old Entrepreneurs of Boreal Peonies — Alaska’s Largest Peony Farm

 

“Hey, you want to go to Alaska this summer?” Rudy Klaver asked Eli Brockman a couple of years ago as the two high schoolers ate lunch. Eli said yes and joined Rudy for a summer working for the Russel family at Boreal Peonies in Two Rivers, Alaska in 2023.

Rudy Klaver and Eli Brockman pictured in front of the boreal peony sign at the farm.
Rudy Klaver, left, and Eli Brockman, right, at the Boreal Peony Farm in Two Rivers, Alaska. Photo courtesy of Boreal Peonies.
Continue reading

The Alaska Peony Industry Turns 25 in 2025

 

Twenty-five years after University of Alaska Fairbanks horticulture researcher Pat Holloway’s initial discovery that Alaska held a niche in the peony market due to its unique bloom time and access to markets, the peony farming scene has ebbed and flowed. 

From the first research plots being planted around 2001, to the boom between roughly 2014 and 2016, to post-COVID and high inflation rates that have left no business untouched, many farmers have come and gone. Those on the scene today are business savvy, hard-working, energetic, and have the health and lifestyles that allow them to focus on peonies full-tilt for at least six weeks during the height of the summer.

The peony farming gold rush in Alaska started because the flowers garnered a high price per stem due when they bloom. That is, they bloomed in Alaska in July and August during prime wedding season. At that time, peonies are not blooming elsewhere or at least nowhere with ready access to air transport and other infrastructure needed to export them. 

The number of peonies planted in Alaska increased exponentially from 20 roots in 2004 to over 120,000 roots in 2012. In 2013, 150 peony farmers (or interested farmers) attended the Alaska Peony Growers Association (APGA) meeting which was close to the peak of interest. There was an effort to reach a global market (including Europe and Asia) through cooperatively marketed peonies. 

coral charm peonies blooming in a field
Continue reading

Growing, Gathering, Hunting, and Fishing for Your Food is Part of the Challenge—Eating it is the Other

 

One of the things I’ve long been curious about is how much food Alaskans grow, hunt, fish and gather and why they do it. This fall, I interviewed Jeff Yacevich, 38, who along with his wife, Laura Guiterrez, 40, is committed to getting much of his food from the land. They live in a cabin tucked away in a somewhat swampy spruce forest on permafrost in Goldstream Valley.

Jeff in red sweatshirt next to fenced garden full of brassicas

They estimate that each year they put up about 20 gallons of blueberries, 10 gallons of cranberries, and a couple of gallons of cloudberries, if they can find them. They aim to hunt for most of their meat, although in recent years they have purchased half a pig for bacon. They also fish for salmon and about 20 pike each year. 

Continue reading

Growing Currants in Alaska

 

My favorite berries are blueberries (wild Alaskan ones of course!) and raspberries, but I have a special place in my heart for currants  as well. Like many Americans, currants aren’t a mainstay. I first heard about currants from my grandma who lived in Anchorage. She was fanatic about them and currant jelly specifically. But I didn’t really appreciate them until later in life when I took a berry class from Dr. Pat Holloway. Importantly, I learned to identify them. This is an important first step in identifying any wild berry, particularly if there is a poisonous berry that is the similar color (there is and it is bane berry!). Wild currants can also be mistaken for high bush cranberries. Unlike high bush cranberries and lowbush cranberries which are too tart for me to want to eat  fresh and high bush too seedy, I like fresh currants. I also like them made into syrup and jelly as well. You can make currant jam but it’s not easy! I prefer eating red currants fresh to black currants because their skin is much thicker. However, black currants have even higher antioxidant levels and vitamin C levels than red currants.

There are six species of black and red currants that are native to Alaska. Searching Ribes in plants.usda.gov via the Alaska State search will bring up all the species of Ribes in Alaska, including gooseberries. I’ve never seen them in quantity enough to pick many in the wild, but that may change along with the climate. In the wild, I find currants in the understory of forested areas, and so unlike many berries that prefer full sun, you can grow currants in partial shade.

Continue reading

Growing Raspberries in Alaska

 

Most gardeners I know tend to be fairly haphazard with their raspberry patches and that may include myself. And you can be because they tend to spread on their own (much more than you might want in some cases) and come back year after year without too much effort. However, with some forethought to the soil, attention to variety you’re planting, and regular pruning, you can maximize the quality and production of your raspberry patch.

red raspberries up close

Raspberries are personally one of my favorite berries to eat fresh or frozen. Although American red raspberries (Rubus idaeus L.) grow wild throughout Alaska, they can be annoyingly small and wormy, although their intense taste does compensate somewhat for these drawbacks. But in my backyard, I’d rather grow larger, more productive cultivars of raspberries. Raspberries also meet most of the criteria I have when choosing what to grow: they are a high dollar item, best fresh, highly perishable, can be eaten without cooking, can be harvested successively, and are something my family will eat as much of as I can grow. As with strawberries, there is a lot to learn about how to maximize production.

Continue reading

How does your garden grow? Through the seasons in an Alaska garden.

 

This year, I decided to document my garden through the seasons. One of the incredible things about gardening in Alaska is how your garden transforms overnight. It’s magical, amazing, and perhaps why I love gardening. Only this summer Things. Did. Not. Grow. Until July. But then there were some pleasant surprises. 

August 11, 2023: Herbs and nasturtiums are thriving.

Here is how my garden grew this summer. . .

Continue reading

Bump Up Your Strawberry Production

 

There are never enough strawberries in our patch — I think my kids and my neighbor’s kids would agree!

I am not the only one who is figuring out how to grow strawberries successfully in Alaska. One of the top posts on my blog, It Grows in Alaska, is Untangling the Mysteries of Growing Strawberries in Alaska. To figure what I can do to bump up my strawberry production, I interviewed Andy Harper, a local strawberry farmer in Two Rivers, Alaska, as well as University of Minnesota researchers who have studied annual strawberry production using a low tunnel system.

strawberries in a box
Photo by Andy Harper.

Andy has a half acre of strawberries in production this year. Some of those plants are research plants. He said he started the farm because, “I love berries, I lived in the UK and Scotland, they love black currants, I love those. I met Papa [Meunier] and he had everything. All different types of berries. I just loved berries. So I decided I wanted to do berry farming. Strawberries are the only ones I can make money on the first year.” Papa “Larry” Meunier was a legendary berry grower and cultivator in Interior Alaska and a longtime Tanana Valley Farmers Market vendor.)

Continue reading

Gardening in Ruby, Alaska

 
Full length shot of Evelyn sarten in mud boots.
Evelyn Sarten in her garden. Photo by Molly Cerridwen.

Evelyn Sarten and her late husband Ed (Dwight) have gardened in Ruby, Alaska, for a quarter of a century. Evelyn, who was raised on the land on a Native American reservation in Taos, New Mexico, estimates she grows about 30% of her food. 

She was taught to live with the land and she’s always grown her own food. Their garden in Ruby is characterized by innovation and making do with what is available. For instance, their chicken coop fence was constructed from an old couch frame, old bed frames, and leftover fencing from the school. Now her one remaining chicken lives in her Arctic entryway.

In addition to growing her own large garden, she also works for the Native Village of Ruby as the natural resources and agriculture program director, helping others in Ruby garden as well. With Evelyn, I and the Tribes Extension Program (www.uaf.edu/ces/tribes) sent out vegetable and flower seeds and organized gardening and plant foraging workshops at the school. We also purchased and built a raised bed garden for the school.

Continue reading