Growing Winter Squash in Alaska

 

Some extraordinary gardeners like Virgil Severns and Terry Reichardt have been growing winter squash in Alaska for years, but for us ordinary gardeners, it’s becoming a much more reliable and feasible crop. 

This video is a companion to this article.

If you’re gardening for food security, squash is a great option because you can store it without having to freeze or can it (and incidentally, you should NOT can pumpkins or squash at home according to the National Center for Home Food Preservation, but you can can cubed winter squash). Storing as is saves time during the mad dash of fall when we are trying to cook and eat all of the fresh produce from the garden or preserve what we can’t eat; as well as pick berries, fish and hunt. Not only does winter squash actually provide some calories as opposed to greens, it is paleo friendly, gluten free, delicious and nutritious. If you don’t have the space to grow squash, you can find locally available winter squash here.

Fully grown squash at the Fairbanks Experiment Farm. Photo by Glenna Gannon.
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Building Your First Greenhouse

 

There are plenty of reasons to build a greenhouse in Alaska if you don’t have one. Having a greenhouse could extend your growing season, give you a place to grow starts (if you have a way to heat it), or allow you to grow warm-season crops like tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers with ease, as well as to eat other crops earlier than you otherwise would. 

But growing in a greenhouse requires more management than an outdoor garden. When it rains, it will not water your greenhouse plants. When it’s hot, you’ll need to make sure it doesn’t get too hot. When it’s humid, you’ll need to ensure adequate ventilation. Pests can multiply quickly in a greenhouse and can be hard to eradicate once there. But those are all manageable problems.

attached greenhouse with lots of plants growing
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Raised Beds Make it Possible to Garden Just About Anywhere

 

Gardening in raised beds offers a lot of benefits, and a few drawbacks. Raised beds are a great option for gardening on top of a porch, concrete, or on poor, rocky soil. They’re ideal for corralling good soil while keeping it from getting compacted. They make it easy to employ no-till gardening and to eliminate weeds in the aisles, especially if your walkways are made of concrete or something else that completely keeps weeds from growing. 

raised bed garden built with paving stones. Sunflowers, vegetables and nasturtiums spill over the side
One of the most beautiful and productive raised bed gardens I’ve seen were planted and cared for by Gretchen Kerndt for the Princess Hotels. This bed is built with paving stones.
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Gardening in the Aleutian Pribilof Island Region of Alaska

 

For this article, I interviewed two people who have gardened or farmed in the Aleutian Islands. Lily Stamm manages a geodesic dome greenhouse in Nikolski, Alaska, located on Umnak Island. Two domes were erected in 2003, one of which has since blown away. I also interviewed Michael Livingston, who homesteaded with his family in Cold Bay in the 1960s. You can watch the video of these interviews here. If you are a gardener or grower in the Aleutian and Pribilof Island region and are interested in sharing what you know, or photos and videos of your garden, please contact Heidi Rader at hbrader@alaska.edu.

lupine in the foreground, ocean and mountains in the background
Near Michael Livingston’s family’s homestead in Cold Bay. Photo by Michael Livingston.
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Bolting – THE Challenge with Growing Spinach in the Land of the Midnight Sun

 

I love fresh spinach so that’s why, even though much of the spinach I plant bolts (in other words, goes to seed), I always try again next year. One of the true pleasures of spinach is how quickly it grows. It is one of the first things I plant in the spring, as soon as the ground is workable, and the first thing I eat. 

In my experience, bolting is THE challenge with growing spinach in Interior Alaska. Warm temperatures and long day lengths are mostly to blame, but big temperature swings and cold temperatures can also play a role in bolting as well. This article does a good job of explaining how cold temperatures trigger bolting (flowering) in spinach and other crops. 

bowl of large leafed spinach with pink gerbera daisies in the background

Spinach is usually direct seeded. It’s possible that transplanting spinach could help mitigate bolting, but trials are needed to assess this. Direct-seeded spinach should be thinned to four to six inches, or whatever spacing is specified on the seed packet. In my garden, I often do not get around to thinning my spinach, which might increase bolting rates, although Glenna Gannon, the director of the vegetable variety trials at the Fairbanks Experiment Farm, says that proper spacing did not reduce bolting rates in trials. Consistent watering also can help prevent bolting in spinach. Spinach leaves can be snipped with scissors and allowed to regrow for successive harvests until it bolts, making it inedible.

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Flowering Vines

 

I like to grow edible plants. The rest of my family prefers flowers. One of my sisters is a peony farmer. And the other one lived in Jordan for years and was particularly fond of flowering vines. She wanted to know which ones grow here so that got me thinking: Which climbing flowers do thrive in Fairbanks?

I’m not talking about gushing flowers like bakopa, lobelia or creeping Jenny that flood baskets hung all over town. I’m talking about flowers that clamber from the ground up clutching on fences, trellises, tepees and pergolas.

Fast and easy to grow, the Black Eyed Susan vine comes in a rainbow of colors although orange and yellow are the most common. It can even be grown in a hanging basket.

Easiest and most trustworthy are canary bird and black-eyed Susan vines, sweet peas, scarlet runner beans, climbing nasturtiums and morning glories. Fairbanks researchers described Milky Way morning glory as a “vigorous, thick vine covered with blooms” that proffered a “very attractive display all summer” and “grew rapidly (covering) the trellis by midsummer.” Don’t bother with Cypress Vine, which did not flower at all in trials.

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Growing a Cut Flower Garden

 

A slew of research and attention has been given to peonies in recent years, but research on growing other cut flowers in Alaska has been limited in the last decade. To get an idea of which cut flowers are growing well in Fairbanks in recent years, I asked a few farmers about their go-to cut flowers for creating unique, locally grown bouquets. 

Caitlyn Huff with Arctic Blooms and Bouquets has loved flowers since she was a girl, but got into the flower farming business when she moved into a house in Fairbanks with 600 peonies. She grows flowers and arranges bouquets for weddings, the farmers market, a CSA, and bazaars (as dried flower arrangements). She loves the beauty and joy they bring people. 

buckets of dahlias and zinnias in a market display
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Ready, Set, Grow a Garden this Summer!

 

Whether it’s your first time gardening or you’ve been at it a long time, this handy garden calendar will help you get started. Villages in Interior Alaska can request a free virtual or face to face workshop with Heidi Rader or another Tribes Extension Educator. Cooperative Extension offers a variety of workshops statewide.

Below is a basic gardening calendar for Interior gardeners. Here is another more detailed seed starting calculator and another resource on getting started gardening.

March 15

March 26

  • Start your cucumbers and tomatoes intended for a greenhouse.
four pictures of emerging seeds and seedlings

April 2

  • Start your pansies, petunias, and peppers!

April 4

  • Join a seed sharing event! If you live in a village in Interior Alaska, contact your Tribal Administrator or Behavioral Health Aide to confirm that they will be hosting a seed sharing event.
Seed sharing is a great way to get your seeds for the season.
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What Grows Where? How to Choose the Best Varieties for Where you Live.

 

One of the most important choices you make in your garden each year is which crops and which varieties to grow. More than any other choice, this can make or break your garden. How do you choose from the many varieties available? Do you grab whichever seed packets happen to be staring at you in the grocery store? Or do you grow the same things every year that have worked for you in the past? Short of turning your backyard into an experiment station, how do you determine which varieties will do best where you live? Descriptions on the backs of seed packets and catalogs provide some insight, but remember seed companies are not an objective party. Ultimately, they want to sell seeds. Practically speaking, they likely have not tested their varieties as far north as Alaska because we are a small market. 

colorful carrots

There are several basic criteria to consider when choosing varieties—yield, taste, and how easy it is to grow. Yield and how easy a variety is to grow are highly specific to where you live. Taste is going to be less location-specific, although Alaska grown vegetables tend to be sweeter. Another consideration is the nutritional quality of the variety. For more help choosing which varieties to grow in your region in Alaska, see what Extension recommends in the Interior, and Southcentral Alaska and which varieties performed best in trials at the Experiment Stations in Alaska, Alaska Plant Materials Center, or trials funded by the Alaska Division of Agriculture. The Southeast Alaska Farmers Summit has helpful presentations and resources for Southeast Alaska.

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Too Much or Not Enough Zucchini? A Matter of Perspective.

 

When you’re planning your garden–how much zucchini do you need? When I was a kid, I hated zucchini except when it was covered up in zucchini bread. Maybe because it was so bountiful and we ate so much of it at certain times of year. Maybe it was because often it ended up as a soggy mush in a stir-fry. 

A blue tote full of two kinds of freshly harvested zucchini.
Zucchini is best picked before it grows too big. Costata Romanesco (striped) is an heirloom variety and one of my favorites.

Over the years, I’ve come to appreciate and hope for a bumper crop of all types of squash. Maybe it’s because I’ve found tastier varieties like Costata Romanesco, an heirloom type with a sturdier texture and nuttier taste or summer squash with a more neutral taste than zucchini. Also, I’ve learned there is a big difference between the gargantuan zucchinis I grew up eating and the more petite sizes that optimize taste and texture. This resource is helpful if you want to choose best squash varieties for where you live.

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