Gardening in Alaska challenging but rewarding

  • Published
  • By Jim Hart
  • JBER Public Affairs
JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, Alaska --  Gardening in Alaska is challenging. There are several reasons why, but they all balance on some essential ingredients for a successful crop: warmth, good soil and sunlight. Southcentral Alaska lacks all three.

When people come up from the Lower 48, the tendency is to try what worked "back home." Trouble is, while your friends and family living 2,000 miles from the nearest glacier are happily tilling their loam, your backyard could host a reenactment of Robert Peary's arctic expeditions.

This is where the Cooperative Extension Service is very handy. Every county in the U.S. has one, but in Alaska, where the laws of physics can appear rescinded, they can save you a lot of heartache.

"It's actually very easy to garden in Alaska if you just forget all the lessons you learned back home in Minnesota or Oklahoma. The biggest challenge is really temperature, getting things warm enough, and then, believe it or not, getting them cool enough [in greenhouses or hoop houses]," said Dr. Stephen Brown, Associate Professor with University of Alaska-Fairbanks and District Agriculture Agent.

This means you need to plan your garden. No longer will tomatoes or cantaloupe be the centerpiece, but leafy greens, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, radishes, carrots, potatoes, turnips and rutabagas. There are more, of course, all you need to do is look for veggies that don't like a lot of heat. You will be the envy of your friends in Florida when you show pics of your garden-fresh lettuce in August (especially when it's served with fresh-caught halibut or salmon).

The fruitfulness of your garden is rooted in the soil. Trouble is, this isn't a fruited plain as much as a cleared forest. We don't have centuries-old grassland or cropland soil like they do in the Midwest.

Brown said most home gardeners are going to have to purchase some topsoil. The least expensive way to do that is to go to a soil manufacturer, where they mix some blend of sand, silt and peat.

"That's the beginning of potentially good garden soil, but when it comes off the truck, in almost all cases, it has almost no nutrients in it," Brown said.

It's at this point you decide which way you want to go with your soil.

Composting can be a slow process in Alaska because of the low temperatures (mounds work best at maintaining the necessary heat), and some of the recommendations, like making fish emulsions for nitrogen, add the dimension of fanged wildlife showing up.

After looking through various command guidance and input from the wildlife folks, they would prefer people not brew fish guts in base housing or by the garden plots.

Besides, if you've ever been to the Russian River after the salmon run, you know there ain't enough Febreze in the world to get that smell out of your mind.

The good news is you can add nitrogen independently through chemical fertilizers. In fact, you can add all the major nutrients and micro-nutrients with artificial fertilizers. The plants won't know the difference, but your soil microbes will.

To make a good soil, you would still need to add some sort of compost or humus, and the richer the soil, the richer the beneficial microbes, the richer the root zone, the healthier and more drought-tolerant the plant.

Microbes help in how they work with the plant's roots. The fungi and bacteria can break down more complex compounds into useful nutrients for the plants and even allow access to otherwise unreachable water. Essentially, the fungus becomes an extension of the plant's root system. In payment for their services, the plant provides carbohydrates for the microbes.

You can successfully grow beautiful plants either chemically or organically, but if the plant gets what it needs from the chemical fertilizer, it won't use the symbiotic microbes ... essentially, when the plants get used to human hand-outs, they won't work to give the microbes any food. In the end, you create beneficial microbe unemployment (starvation).

Brown said a soil test will go a long way in helping you decide the best course for your soil. There are several labs you can use, including UAF's, and the extension service will interpret the numbers for you for free along with providing a list of recommended soil additives (nutrient compositions that would work in Wisconsin, might not work in Alaska - so this is a big deal). Prices vary quite a bit, costing as much as $40, so shop around.

This brings us to threats to your garden. The biggest, by far, is moose.

"Cabbage is like a flashing neon sign saying 'come eat here'," Brown said.

Brown said tall fencing is best, but a sprinkler system set with a motion-detector also works well by startling the animals away. You can get the setup at local garden supply stores.

You can also use electric fencing, but there is a drawback.

"Most animals when they come up to an electric fence (and) they get shocked, they will back away from it, but a moose will charge through it," Brown said.

Of course, electric fencing in housing is generally frowned upon, so we shouldn't see garden-induced YouTube videos of "Bullwinkle Gone Wild - JBER."

The key to successful gardening in Alaska is to ask questions, not make assertions. The Extension Service has researched many of the problems you will likely encounter, and their website gives you free access to an extensive array of publications and research. You can find volumes of information at www.uaf.edu/ces/gardening.

For garden plot reservations (you can't grow moose bait in housing) call Outdoor Rec at 552-2023, equipment rentals option.

As a sort of side note, some of Brown's research dealt with mycorrhizae, a family of beneficial fungi that work symbiotically with plant root systems to bring otherwise inaccessible nutrients and moisture to the plant. Neat, huh?