Every year I share things about my garden, and the last couple about my greenhouse as well. But I’ve never shared about my gardening experiences in Alaska. So I thought today I’d share about that process. First I’ll tell you, I do not have a green thumb, in fact, I started out with probably a black thumb, killing so many plants before I learned how to grow them better.

I grew up in Southern Utah. The soil was sand and clay. We had water rights for watering our garden once a week, and because of the soil, it held the water pretty good. The garden wasn’t big, but we grew lots of veggies. My parents also had apple trees, a plum tree, a peach tree for a while, and the elderly neighbor had a cherry tree he let us pick cherries from.

When I moved to Alaska I decided I needed to grow a garden. We started out with just a couple of raised beds about 2 feet wide by about 20 feet long. It was just on the ground in the woods, and didn’t get much sunlight, so we didn’t have huge harvests of anything, but got enough just for fresh eating.

Then we moved our garden spot about 15 years ago to where it is now. It wasn’t nearly as big back then, but seems to keep expanding year to year. We also have the terraced areas where our berries are now planted, but didn’t utilize them except the first year or two. Then they sat empty for quite a few years before I planted berries the last 4 or 5 years in them.

The soil is much different here. The top couple of inches is a top soil of sorts, with mostly peat moss. Everything under that is sand and gravel. We cleared out to build our house and piled up the little bit of top soil type material. When we got ready to make our current garden we spread that out so it was a thicker layer of soil, about 8 inches or so.

The soil here is full of organic material, but it’s almost sterile organic material, and there isn’t much that holds water, which is good for the area as we get a lot of rain. But it’s not so great for the garden as the water just drains through and disappears if it’s a heavier rain, or just sits in the top couple of inches and then evaporates if its very drizzly, which it is most of the time. It took me years to realize I just wasn’t watering my garden enough. Sometimes even when it’s raining I have to go out and water the garden to get the water down to the roots.

We also have to feed the soil. In years past we used just the chemical type pellet fertilizers. But over the years we’ve learned about soil microbiome and have stopped using those and started using animal waste type fertilizer, from rabbits, goats, pigs, and cows. Whatever we can find locally. It’s been a process.

This year we were able to spread a lot of manure over the whole garden as well as over our berry bushes and even put some in our greenhouse beds. It’s made a huge difference in the productivity of the garden. I’m glad we found a larger quantity of manure this year.

When I started out, because I killed so many plants, I focused all my energy learning how to grow vegetables. If we couldn’t eat it, I wasn’t going to waste my time. But as we’ve gone along, the last few years I’ve started growing more and more flowers. As I’ve learned about gardening, I’ve also learned about pollinators, and how important having flowers growing in or near your garden is, to attract the bees and other pollinators to my garden. I also never kill the dandelions that grow around my garden, they attract a lot of pollinators early in the summer before too many other flowers are blooming.

This spring I started a number of pots in my greenhouse with flowers. It’s the first year I’ve made a concerted effort to grow more flowers. I bought starts from one of the local greenhouses and planted them in my pots. By the time I took them outside, they were already full and growing beautifully, and since being outside, they have just gotten more and more beautiful.

I’ve never planted Dahlia’s before, but I have them in 4 pots and they have just bloomed and bloomed. I cut the blooms off every few days as they get a little older, and bring them in my house to enjoy, and they just produce even more flowers. They make my heart happy every time I go outside.

The last 3 years I have also planted 2 pots with citronella plants and placed them next to each door that we frequently use. I have been impressed at how well they keep the mosquitos away from the doors. We still have them come in, particularly on the dogs, but there has been a dramatic decrease in how many mosquitoes are inside.

When I started gardening I heard older gardeners say that it takes 20 years to get a garden growing well. I didn’t believe them. Now, after almost 30 years of gardening in Alaska, I have learned that it’s not that it takes 20 years to get the garden right, but 20 years to gain the knowledge to apply to the garden to get it growing well. A process of learning your own microclimate and what works in your area. Mine is still a work in progress. Every year I learn more and more, and we expand more and more. I love the process, and as we’ve gone along, I’ve loved to see the progress my garden makes because I’ve learned something new.

Featured Artwork: