Signs of August

Today, Sunday August 21st, I looked around my garden and wondered what things would look like if it hadn't been such a wet summer.  It's dried out a bit in the last week or so, but the rain persists amidst the changing seasons.  Fall is creeping in on the edges of summer.  The fireweed has all but bloomed out and the dogwood leaves are turning it's classic dark red color.  Blueberry season has come and gone, perhaps with some hangers on here and there.  The smell of labrador lurks in the wet under-story of the boreal forest.  The garden is in it's mature stage and is starting to show signs on the end of the growing season. 

August is one of my favorite months.  There is always surprisingly more summer left and the speed at which people begin to prepare for winter starts to gear up.  That anxiety of being ready for winter starts to sink in a little and you begin thinking about what you need to do before the snow hits.  Then you realize that you easily have a couple months left.  There are still green leaves and the geese haven't left yet.  Keep growing little garden!

Here's where we're at today:

Those melons that lived all summer in their tiny plastic tunnel finally outgrew it.  Now they have the area where the Asian Greens were to stretch their long, stunted limbs.  Tiny flowers bloom but no fruit is apparent.  I doubt I'll see anything but why not let it have fun growing?  And wouldn't it be adorable to get a teeny weeny melon?  Yes, it would.

The big pumpkin!  There's also a slightly smaller one.  These both hung on after the end of their limbs were stomped off by jerk moose.  Good job, pumpkins.  I can't wait to see what you do.

The compost pile got enough water to make it's own garden.  My sister-in-law gifted me some tomato plants that had sprouted up too tall before they got out of their starter packs.   They didn't do well and were about to die so I tossed them in the compost not thinking much about it.  But, here they are, standing tall.  I'd totally eat some compost tomatoes.  Go for it Toms.

These leggy pansies hate the too much water but they also don't seem to like being too tall.  One way or another, they don't stop so I let them keep blooming.

I'm sorry lavender.  I failed you.  All you wanted to do was grow, but I pulled you out of the elements and put you under the awning too late in life.  Maybe you'll have one stalk that I'll harvest and hang as a reminder of how I need to pay attention to the signs.  For now, I'll let you keep trying until you tell me to stop.

Oh, Petunias.  I know.  You hate the too much water too.  You're even showing signs of bruising. 

These are flowers that have been battered by rain for weeks on end.  Flowers still bloom but they're all a little worse for the wear.  Poor things.

LOOK AT THESE FLOWIES.  Marigolds have been the one flower who does not give a flying fudge about the rain.  They don't seem to care about anything except growing and being gorgeous.  I should certainly plant MORE of these next year, planning on more rain and more weird weather.

I finally gave in and covered my potatoes.  They need to dry out and I already have one plant that died.  Once they get a little dryer, I'll dig it up and see what's going on under there.  

I finally transplanted the rhubarb into it's new home.  It's near the house in a mix of organic potting soil with fertilizer and the top soil around the house.  It will get a decent amount of sun, although it could probably use more.  Hopefully it will winter over well and I'll have a happily producing plant next summer.

 There's more summer left, so who knows what's in store for my garden.  At this point, I see the light at the end of the tunnel.  I see pulling plants and getting the beds ready for winter.  I see hanging herbs to dry, bagging potatoes, putting away empty pots and hanging up my shovel and trowel.  However, I think this garden has more to give, for now anyway.  I'll let things grow for as long as their still having fun.

In the meantime, I let the peas that weren't totally destroyed by the moose hang on for the heck of it.  Two plants have started all over, climbing, flowering and even producing!  Plants are incredible forces that even with great efforts, cannot be stopped.  I'll take this as a sign to let this garden go, late into the season.  Until either the moose come back or the weather changes for the worse.  

Here's to a dry fall!

Thanks for not giving up, peas.  It means a lot. 

I Hate Moose.

They're big.  They run in the road.  They're clumsy.  They probably smell.  And they eat my precious, tender and vulnerable garden.  Vulnerable because, like an Alaskan idiot, I didn't build a fence around my garden.  There's a project for next spring, I guess.  Ugh.

So, I lost all but 6 beets, most of my carrots, ALL of the peas (ALL OF THE PEAS) and because moose are inconsiderate jerks, they also stomped on my pumpkin and squash plants with their big, stupid feet, effectively killing several large limbs.  I hope those moose pooped purple for days. 

I woke up one morning and went out to the garden to pick veggies for my co-workers and found this destruction.  The day before, you could barely see the trellis under the weight of the Wando peas that climbed high above the tallest rung.  But I guess moose don't like kale?  I couldn't kill that kale if I wanted to.  You're looking at the 4th crop of kale.

The moose (Momma and baby, judging by the hoof prints in my garden... ) pulled the beets out and ate them, top to bottom.  They also ate most of the tops of the carrots, leading me to have to pick most of them.  I tried Googling it but didn't find much but, can carrots live without their green tops? 

At the time that the moose ate my garden, I had given away more than I had consumed.  Many Alaskan Native cultures teach hunters to prepare and feed their first kill to their family and community.  So, with that giving spirit, I tried to give away the first of everything that I grew.  That meant that I hadn't had any of my beets yet, so I had 6 to eat after this mess was all cleaned up.  It was a good lesson on respecting the plants that I was growing, giving back to my community and being humble about how nature works with and against you.

Between the rain and the moose, I felt a little discouraged with my pilot garden.  But hey, there's still potatoes to dig, tomatoes to eat, squash to pluck, pumpkins to watch and herbs to dry.  It's high time to whip out that silver lining.

The Rainy Season

The rain got close to record breaking in June, but there was still plenty of sun to mostly make up for it, so the plants did okay.  By late July, however, the plants started to show signs of over-watering.  This was hard to deal with since I couldn't do much besides start covering beds and I still didn't think I needed to quite yet.  Boy, do I have a lot left to learn.

Same petunias planted on the same day in the same pots.  The ones on the left have been hanging under the awning of the house, getting just enough water.  The ones on the right have received most of the downpour and instead of the dead heads drying up and falling off, they got mushy and hung on, leading to a gross looking basket.

My trellis branching out.  At least the trellis can handle the rain.

The lavender was apparently VERY sensitive to over-watering.  It started to die and later on pretty much gave up.  I should have harvested it at this time in late July.  Damn.

The zucchini and squash produced really fast.  Was this a result of a lot of rain?  I know they love a lot of water because their fruit is so damn watery, but would a super wet season mean more fruit, faster?  Either way, I kept loosing zucchini to the cycle of life.  They'd sprout, grow and rot before I could even pick them and give away to some sucker I stopped on the street.  I didn't actually do that but I did give away pounds and pounds of zucchini to neighbors and co-workers.

The rain was the biggest challenge of this growing season.  If I could do it again, I'd cover plants from the rain, harvest other plants sooner and leave some plants right where they were.  This season taught me that I have SO much more to learn about growing plants in Alaska, especially in our changing climate.  Fall time should be interesting.

July

July stormed in hot and stormed out flooding.  Too much rain.  Way too much rain.  I heard about other gardeners who were covering their beds, trying to keep a reasonable amount of water in while keeping the rest out.  I didn't cover anything in July, I just tried to roll with it, which was harder than I thought.  However, the plants (for the most part) did better than I had anticipated.  Mid-summer is always a time of bounty, fullness, excitement and loads of possibility left.  We traveled for a week at the beginning of July but when we got back, the garden was exploding, despite the Juneau-like weather conditions. 

You're about to see a lot of glorious photos.

The potted garden was doing well in mid-July.  The terra cotta pots dried out a lot faster but I kept up watering them with my water catchment system.  From left to right: The too-tall pansies, lavender, thyme & rosemary, more too-tall pansies (see what I mean?), very happy marigolds, and these weird flowers I keep getting that I shouldn't keep getting because they just shed dead flowers.

The Fox Glove and Impatiens still doing well.  No flowies from the Fox Glove though...

The main garden in mid-July.  Note the cute compost bin I built out of scrap chicken wire and thick wooden dowels, because I'm cheap.  I will need to think of a bigger compost bin in the not too distant future.

Main garden on the right side. From left to right: Wando Snow Peas, mystery flower (tiger something?), mixed color Beets, French Carrots, Pumpkins and Crooked Neck Squash.  Time for thinning beets and carrots!

The pea trellis could have had more limbs, the peas kept grabbing onto other plants, but they grew fast enough to be able to keep them on track.  They got SUPER tall SUPER fast.

First pumpkin!  That's a lie.  I weed whacked the first pumpkin by accident, this is the second pumpkin.  Still crazy cute.

Crooked Neck Squash was the first veggie (fruit) ready to eat, even if it was a little small.  Three plants of this squash was plenty, I'd like to try winter squash and spaghetti squash next year.

Baby kale after it's first cutting.  It came back really fast after a cutting which means this was plenty of kale for us and the neighbors.  We crammed most of one package of kale seeds into this bed.

My melons had to be moved to where they could stretch out more, but the rain did a number on them and I didn't think it was warm enough for them.  I made this tiny tunnel for them out of bamboo and a painter's drop cloth, because again, I'm cheap (and creative!).  This tunnel is what kept them alive, although it took a good long while for them to really start getting their footing.

This potato garden was here when we moved in.  It is located under birch trees which isn't good for a garden.  The seeds will change the soil and make it not-so hospitable.  We cut spruce trees around the bed which gave it more sunlight, helping the potatoes to do well.  But you can see which side of the bed gets more sunlight (the taller side in the foreground).  We'll see come dig-up time if this was a good spot for potatoes.  Fox Glove is in the corners and MUCH smaller than the Fox Glove by the Impatiens.  What's with that Fox Glove?  Too little sun?  Too much rain?  Doesn't like neighbors? 

Glorious zucchini.  I eat a zucchini muffin as I write this post, made from these very veggies.  Three zuc plants was one too many though.  These were serious producers.

By late July I had picked all the Tatsoi out of it's bed, two and a half cuttings got close to a very bitter green.  They started bolting like crazy so out they went.  (You can see where they used to live in the bed on the left where there is only soil).  The kale was onto it's 3rd cutting and the beets and carrots were ripe for the picking!  The Wando peas were growing tall ,but still not producing peas.  Note: my trellis started to sprout.  I nailed green willow branches to the inside of the beds but I guess all the watering of the peas led to them staying alive and producing new branches.  I wonder if they'll keep going through the winter.  We'll see.

Late-July bounty.  I gave this load to our neighbors who give us homemade cider and fresh eggs.  It's a good deal we've got going on.  For scale, the biggest beet is about the size of a golf ball.  Things were still small but they needed to be thinned so they got ate! 

July was hard but good.  The plants (again, for the most part) seemed to thrive through the down pours and revel in the sun when it broke through.  By this time in the summer I was starting to wonder what the garden would look like if it kept on raining...

To be continued.

Bright Beginnings

May and June were perfect and beautiful.  Hot days, afternoon showers, popping green leaves and budding fireweed.  Finally the beets and carrots sprouted up among the flowies that had already made their debut.  Everyone was happy because everyone was there.  No one was left out of the kickball game, everyone got to play.

Tatsoi ("Asian Greens") grew crazy fast and we planted far more than we could ever eat.  We gave away bags and bags to our neighbors, co-workers and family members.  This stuff is great for salads, cooking up with veggies and eggs for breaky, and on turkey sandwiches (my favorite food).

The carrots were slow to grow but they were oh-so steady.  The package was right, one seed every couple of inches or so would have saved me some thinning, but I wasn't too far off with this one seed every one inch method.  And I like to eat tiny baby carrots, it makes me feel like a 50 foot woman.

Marigolds are the perfect Alaskan summer flower.  They have put up with so much shit this summer: over watering, under watering and multiple dog smashings.  They've been in terra cotta pots, plastic pots, wooden beds and hanging baskets.  And look how freaking beautiful they are.  There is something about that bitter smell that sticks to the inside of your nose that I just love.

My mom always grew (and still does grow) pansies of all kinds.  Whatever variety this was they shot up super tall and got too wobbly.  They were lovely and produced a bunch of flowers but I think a shorter, smaller variety will be in order for next year.

Petunias.  I love petunias.  And they love pretty much anyone and anything.  I like to get bright popping colors like this red because they always spill over with booming color and thick, fuzzy stems.  I just had a thought, are my legs actually petunia stems?  Hmm.

Lobelia is also a favorite.  It grows in so full and thick.  It is generally pretty hardy and can fill out any hanging basket real nicely.  This year I got this lovely blue and a bright purple variety, with enough to fill two big hanging baskets.

The first red cherry tomatoes came in thick and hung on strong for a while before they started to turn red.

By late June the garden was showing it's true potential: limitless.  At this point in my eyes, nothing could go wrong.  How could it?  We had plenty of sun, plenty of rain, plenty of day light and a loving garden mother who talked sweetly and encouraged each plant to do it's best.  "Look at you!  You're doing so great!  Yep, just keep heading that way and you'll be producing in no time.  Let me get rid of those dead leaves for you, there.  Oh, look at that chick-weed, here, I got it."

Plants are living things like you and me.  Like my dogs.  Like the wood peckers who loudly wake me in the morning, the baby ravens learning how to fly and the rooster who is obviously new to crowing.  Living things like to be talked to nicely and they often do well if you give them what they need and a little bit of what they want. 

Much like my robust baby garden, June was a beautiful and promising thing.

Ebbs and Flows

The summer began hot and early in an already dry May.  The plan was to plant early since the weather was going to allow it.  I've never planted in May, I usually never get my shit together until June, but that's a fairly common time to plant in the interior sub-arctic north.  The long hours of sunlight mean that it's a shot and fast growing season, full of unexpected plot twists that make gardening a constant lesson.  I've been gardening on a very small scale for over 10 years, but this was my first summer in the house my wife and I bought last winter.  More than a sauna, an extension on the deck, stacking wood, cleaning out the gutters, cutting down dead trees... I deeply needed to get a garden going.  Top.  Priority.  Because of the beautiful and bountiful garden that my mother so sweetly tended to every summer (with no help from us jerk kids) I think of it like this: a garden = a home.

And so it began.

After a visit to Plant Kingdom (local green house), I had acquired my entire garden, which fit in the back of my car with two dogs and several bags of manure.  Everything was fresh and begging to be planted.  Roots squeezed out the bottom of their plastic cups, reaching for something that wasn't quite ready yet.  First things first, a home must be made by someone.  And the plants weren't about to help.

Building raised beds was more expensive, difficult and fun than I thought it'd be.  I had grand plans of 4 4' x 12' raised beds.  There would be tall trellises where peas would grow taller than me.  I could terrace some beds and use vertical space effectively!  Turns out that shit is spendy and incredibly time consuming.  So, I went to plan B: find extra pieces of wood and build a small raised bed garden.  Learn about my land before I went over the top on my dream garden. 

See, when you're backyard is 30 feet of grass and 2 acres of boreal forest, the soil won't be so great, to put it simply.  Not enough nutrition for the tender type of plants, too rooty... Raised beds also give you the honey moon period of new soil that sees nary a weed.  Score.  The lovely neighbors found a raised bed frame made out of decking lumber in their yard and gave it to us, it was small but it made a perfect template for getting the garden started. 

Quickly after the garden frame gift my wife and I got busy to buildin' and made one more frame (Like our neighbors we had extra deck lumber since our houses were built by the same person, convenient, yes.) and one small frame made out of whatever we had left over.  Before planting our eager starts we had to line the inside of the beds with black contractor's plastic to prevent the chemicals from the treated decking lumber seeping into the soil and into the new plants.  We also lined the bottom with newspaper, which will kill the grass below and decompose after a few years.  We filled in the beds with a mix of organic planting soil and delicious manure; we wanted our new garden to get a special kick in the ass when they were planted.  "This is a unseasonably warm May in Alaska, you have to start growing AS SOON AS YOUR ROOTS HIT THE GROUND."  (That's me giving my plants a pep talk. If you only knew how much I talk to my plants.)  The rush to get your garden started is a common, panic-inducing, feeling among Fairbanks residents, especially when Climate Change gifts you with a slightly longer growing season.  Get to planting you, WINTER IS ALWAYS COMING.

Finally.  The fun part: introducing the plants to their new homes.  Tuck 'em in tight, it's gonna be a long ride.  Little did these plants (or I) know how rainy this summer would turn out to be... more on that later.

The two main beds built and the pea trellis made from willow branches started.  I've always had a day dream of a garden where I can sit inside enveloped by the plants, reading, sipping lemonade and staring at the sky.  This trellis is the small start to a garden that will eventually embrace people with life.

Since I couldn't afford to make as many beds as I wanted, I used the pot-on-the-deck method of gardening.  After renting dry cabins for over a decade, I got pretty good at pot gardening.

Transplanted rhubarb from my mother's giant rhubarb plant & yellow and red cherry tomatoes.

Fox Glove on the sides and pink Impatiens in the middle.  Old, handmade snowshoes in the back.  Caribou antlers on the side.  #Alaskanlawnorniments

The tiny raised bed in the back and the finished trellis.  Besides the visible plants, we sowed tatsoi ("Asian greens"), a variety of colored beets, french (?) carrots and Wando snow peas.

Top two plants: pumpkins.  I had NO CLUE how big those ass holes get.  This needs to be re-thunk for next year.  Holy shit.  Bottom three plants: Yellow crooked neck squash.  This was a GREAT variety, so tasty.

Two plants not pictured but also in this bed: melons... long story but they hated everything.  The  three plants seen here: zucchini.  Which turned out to be a LOT of zucchini.

The tiny bed was dedicated to sowing kale.  This was a plain, not so exciting variety of kale that yielded a veritable ton of baby kale.  4-5 cuttings in all.  The tiny trellis was all decoration, and no, I didn't mean for it to look like a Star Trek communicator, I'm just that much of a trekkie.

So in love with this garden.  It's an incredible thing to imagine, draw, create and nurture.  Literally bringing dreams to life. 

There is so much hope in the early stages of gardening.  So much colored imagery of mid-summer crops and fall-time preserving.  Oh, if only it were that simple.  But really, it's the struggle to keep things alive, healthy and producing that I find so gratifying.  Hard work is good for you.  And the plants.