Dry Summer Food Production in Alaska: Good for veggies, bad for berries

Wet and dry summers have inverse impacts on our vegetable and berry harvests.  Past experience reinforces the importance of planting/harvesting/storing more than we can eat in a single year. 

Last year was so rainy that our berry harvests (all types) were HUGE, in both fruit size and quantity.  We gathered close to six gallons of raspberries, alone.  However, slugs liked the wet conditions, too.  They invaded the vegetable gardens, chewed leaves to lace and invaded every nook and cranny of broccoli and cauliflower heads.  GROSS!  Root crops and greenhouse plants were spared, but all the time and effort to seed, transplant, and care for scores of leafy veggies … yielded a few measly winter weeks of those vegetable dishes. 

 

This hot, dry summer is very different.  Some veggies and herbs bolted (flowered) early, after which they degrade, but others look hale and hardy, especially old reliables like potatoes and brassicas (cabbage, etc).  On the other hand,, the brassica buttoned, which I had never even heard of, which is when they fail to set heads,, or grow only tiny ones.  so I am harvesting the leaves to can for winter or summer side dishes.

Every afternoon, I gather leaves and flowers for the evening salad.  The last two weeks featured leaves of beets, lettuce, carrots, chives, turnips, radish, and mustard, and the pretty, pink, yellow, and white flowers of the last four. I make a tasty dip with carrot greens, too.

Unfortunately, the berry production in this weather is PUNY, in both size and number.  Last year, high bush cranberries numbered 15 – 25 on a strand.  This year:  3 – 5 tiny hard ones.  Prior years we had to net our six haskap bushes to deter birds.  This year, they barely visit.  Similar reductions are clear in currants, gooseberries, and haskaps.  Only the saskatoons and raspberries seem to have the same number of berries, but they will likely be smaller fruit.

Winter weather affects food production, too.  Two perennials, lovage (tastes like celery) and sorrel (a citrusy leafy green) did not overwinter, to my dismay.  They had been so robust for several years that I did not seed any others.  I miss them both and will have to start over next year.  Perhaps it was the very cold temperatures in November with no insulating snow cover.  Even the heavy mulching of those gardens with birch leaves was apparently inadequate.

One edible weed I like so much that I actually let it proliferate in my raised bed gardens.  It is called lamb’s quarter.  This plant favors disturbed soil, like gardens a⅝nd roadsides.  I use it, raw or cooked, in the same way I prepare spinach – in dips, salads, and sautéed dishes.  Lamb’s quarter leaves and very young stalks have a gentle, almost nutty flavor.  For tonight, I made a dip with mayo, sour cream, garlic, parmesan, and the leaves.  Earlier in the week, I added the plants to a stir fry with rice noodles and chicken.  Last week I sautéed the greens with garlic, lemon, and butter.  Yum.   

 Anyone living in a remote location or otherwise seeking to increase self-sufficiency is wise to learn how to identify, harvest, and utilize wild, edible plants.  Where I live, I do not have to worry about pesticides or pollution.  I harvest a number of other wild plants too, for food and teas, but I don’t let fireweed, dandelions, or ferns grow in the gardens.    

The convenience of a supermarket is marvelous in its selection and logistics, but I have learned to expand my varieties of food modestly, through growing and foraging.

Captain Buddy, Our Kayaking Alaskan Dog

Three weeks ago, we adopted a young dog (perhaps a year old) from the Palmer pound.  He is mostly a chocolate lab, with some other antecedents mixed in.  We named him Buddy.  As one friend said, “Our place must be dog heaven.”   I hope it will be.

Buddy on bow

Our priorities for selection were:

• Big enough to not be eagle bait
• Small enough to fit in our Piper PA 20 plane and our small log cabin
• Neither  yippy nor a big hair shedder
• Trainable, given the chickens, bear, and moose in the vicinity
• Likes water
  

 

Other than his killing two chickens the first day, things are going OK as we get to know each other.

Kayaking with him is fun for all three of us.

Every afternoon, we all clamber into the blue, tandem kayak.  Early on, Buddy stands on the bow, looking like a canine version of “Master and Commander.” 

Yesterday, for the first time, he felt calm enough to lie down on the bow, which we hope he will continue, but he spends most of the time striding back and forth over both humans and along the skinny gunwales, reaching for lily pads or nipping at circling flies and then falling into the water. We haul him back into the boat, whereupon he soaks us… repeatedly… as he shakes the apparently requisite three times.  We smell like wet dogs when we paddle home for dinner, enjoying a salubrious dip in the wood fired hot tub first.

Buddy supervising desk work

On these watery sojourns, we meander here and there, putting in at bogs and meadows where he jumps off like a commuter who knows his stop.  He chases birds and sniffs plants (and probably other animals urine).  When satisfied, he hops back on and we move to another favored spot, like shallow rocky points where he can walk in the water and shaded coves with live sweet gale branches with which he wrestles and water logged birch boughs that he tries to haul out of the lake.       

He is still very needy of human companionship, which we understand.  The Anchorage animal shelter volunteers said that they are at capacity because people are returning their pets. I have read that this is true nation-wide.  One reason frequently stated is the inflationary costs of human and dog food/supplies preceded by a high rate of adoptions during Covid shut downs.  Perhaps Buddy’s prior owner had to cut costs.  Perhaps after working from home for two years, he had to start leaving the dog alone every day and returned to a home destroyed by a distraught canine.  Whatever the reason may be, the dog was evidently not physically abused, but does have abandonment issues.  We are working to assure him that we are reliably here for him.

Buddy giving kisses

After that, we will need to train him to be comfortable in the plane…