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…

April: Wolf, Wolverine, Swans, and Geese

April is full of firsts, both for spring, and, this year, forever.

This was the first time in over a decade of living here full time, that we saw a wolf.  What a gorgeous creature.  He was alone, sitting on the lake ice across from our cabin, facing this way.  He appeared to occasionally lick a foreleg.  Eventually, he rose and limped north.  Had he fought with the alpha wolf and been kicked out of his pack?  I do not know.  But he kept looking backward as he walked.

Late in the month we saw for the first time the distinctively round, 3 inch prints of a wolverine.  His feet picked up the mud and dust under and around our cabin, so the tracks were very clear on the snow heading down to the lake, including five sharp claws where he ascended the snow pack. This proximity was a bit alarming because these animals have a very fierce reputation. 

Twice, the motion detector light on the chicken coop attracted Bryan’s attention.  Sure enough, he saw the bright eyes of a sleek, black marten probing for openings in the structure.  This is a good time of year for that, because as the snow melts and the ice loosens its grip on the soil, the buildings can shift, creating an opening in the chicken wire that connects the coop to the 4 x 10 foot covered run.  Needless to say, the hens did NOT want to venture out the next morning.

Speaking of hens, for the first time I did something that Bryan thought was the silliest thing ever.  I dragged thin spruce trunks into an 80 foot line between the coop and our back porch as a “chicken sidewalk.”

 

The girls love the sun and the dry space beneath our cabin, but they do not like the texture of snow, particularly soft pack.  Two intrepid explorers traversed the trees every day, enjoying the expanding open ground and initial grasses denied their less venturesome colleagues. 

Throughout the second half of the month, we greeted returning migrating birds.  Swans travel in mating pairs, and three sets rested on the frozen lake before winging north.  With their long necks and legs stretched forward and back, they look enormous.  One morning, we awoke to a large flock of geese resting on the ice.  Given how noisy they are in flight, I was surprised that we did not hear them land or take off.  Perhaps quietude is important when grounded.  Pairs of sand hill cranes, which are usually the first birds we see, finally showed up the last week of the month.  They, too, are noisy “talkers” with a distinctive cry for which we give them the moniker, “the clackers.”  These birds fly so low that I can see up close as they fly past the front window. 

By May 1, our property is still about 75-80% covered with snow, but increasing brown doughnuts of open ground expand around trees and buildings.  The weather was odd all April – still freezing at night but into the 40’s in the afternoons, so the snow was hard and easy to walk on in the morning, and then receding rapidly in the afternoons.  Already, several wild currant bushes sport their small, mauve flowers.  Even one of the haskap (honeyberry) bushes has two yellow flowers despite otherwise nude branches.  By May 5, the mature birch trees are covered with catkins and the younger ones are starting to leaf out.  Soon, surfaces will be coated in green pollen. 

 The ice on the lake is softening, but I spy no open water yet.  This is a long, slow breakup.

March: Chainsaw and Snowmachine Fun in Rural Alaska

March is my favorite winter month.  Why wouldn’t it be?  We have the longest daylight of the season  - 12 hours (when it is sunny and not snowing) PLUS the long, languorous sunrises and sunsets for which northern latitudes are justly famous. 

 

Snow machine with freight sled for logging

This sun sparkles on the 6 or so feet of snow on the ground, eroding parabola shaped shields around trees as the sun arcs from south to west.

 

On sunny, windless afternoons, even in the high 30s to 40s F, we enjoy a drink and sometimes a meal on the front porch, warmed by the sun (wearing jackets and hats).  Intrepid little insects emerge from… wherever… to heat themselves and mate on the sun warmed log walls.

 

My favorite task this month is culling trees in the forest for firewood. My roles remind me of go karts and county fair competitions.

 

Each autumn, when the bugs are gone, the ground is firm, and the birch leaves have dropped so we have a clearer view of the woods, we bushwhack a trail along a concentric circle of standing dead spruce trees.  In the winter, we snowshoe and then snowmachine a hard packed path there, so we can get close to the trees with a snowmachine and large freight sled, plus two little plastic sleds that carry the tools to the work site and cart away the log rounds from the tree to the large sled.  On cool March mornings (and this year, even into mid-April), we head out with chainsaws, kevlar chaps, ear protection and snowshoes to fell some trees.   Bryan assesses the direction that each target tree wants to fall, based on orientation and heavy/light limbs. After that, he limbs the tree and bucks the wood into rounds. 

 

Then, the fun part starts for me.  I play bocce ball with the logs by tossing them toward a target near the small sleds. I judge my prowess by how many subsequent logs hit the first one.  Some of the really skinny trees with no lateral branches, I throw like a javelin.  Then I lumber over to the pile in my snowshoes (if the snow is soft) or regular boots, if the snow is hard, load up the sled(s), unstrap my snowshoes to straddle the snow machine and deliver the logs to their destinations.

 

Spruce logs awaiting splitting

I feel like a kid on the go kart tracks my boys loved as kids when I careen around the trails through the woods and around our hilly property. The thin top trunk logs of black spruce go next to the wood fired hot tub. Thick ones that will need to be split next summer with an electric log splitter I pile up under the larch trees near the wood corral.  Rotted trunks with a neat central hole I ream out with a crowbar for future planters. Bryan usually quits after two tanks of chain saw gas, while I serve as log loader and delivery gal.  It is great that this is so fun, because we are incentivized to gather 11 cords for winter.  A friend with a 5 bedroom house needs 40 cords each year!

 

This year we are also harvesting 10 to 12 foot long trunks of the slimmer trees (or the tops of them) to use as posts and poles for construction projects.  These I drag behind me towed by a looped ratchet strap.  Some will support an electric fence encircling the bee yard.  Others will support perennial climbing vines (clematis) that I plan to plant on either side of south facing doorways. So pretty!

 

This year, nights were still below freezing until mid-April, so we were able to gather firewood for a longer period.  This is good for two reasons.  One, standing dead spruce are highly combustible fire hazards.  Two, they will rot upright over time and be less useful in the future for fuel or construction.

 

Wood corral as of March 29

In mid-April, we finally wrapped up this project by cleaning up some of the flammable debris on the ground.  I towed many sled loads of the pine cone rich tops of the trees to the wood corral, where we chop them up as tinder.  Dead branches fueled several days of bonfires in a snow filled meadow.  (Don’t you love a bonfire in winter?) These locations serve as our version of terra preta, or maybe biochar.  A few years hence, dozens of little birch seedlings with sprout in this year’s burn spot, just as they have in others.

March: Five Months without Re-supply

 

A frequent question people ask me is:  “What do you miss most about a city?”  I miss live theater, authentic ethnic food, museums, and certain seasonal events.  But this time of year what I miss most is... access to fresh, raw, crunchy vegetables.  Yup, something as prosaic as that! 

 

We are officially “crunchless” now that I have cut up my last onion.  It has been 5 months since we last flew to town (and a supermarket).  My mouth is watering for a bite of crisp celery or crunchy cabbage.  I even want to hear the sound!  The only greens we have now are the sprouts I grow all winter and the few leaves of plants I start under grow lights in late February.

 

Missing celery reinforces my big Life Lesson of living here, which is to take nothing for granted and to appreciate the grace notes of life:  a fresh vegetable, a warm fire, the pristine whiteness of (yet another!) snow.  

 

Textural preference aside,  we have plenty of food, both what we raise and what we buy (on a meticulous 275 line spreadsheet).

 

Among  produce that I raise/forage, my food shed, even this late in the winter, is full LOTS of berries, rhubarb, dried dill, and lovage (the leaves tastes like celery, but alas, no crunch) and homemade condiments, like horseradish, zucchini relish,  and chutneys.    We still have plenty of potatoes from the dozen plants last summer and lots of dried mint, rosehips, lemon balm, chaga, and  the leaves of fireweed and berry bushes for tea. 

 

But other vegetables and herbs that I labored to grow, harvest, blanch/freeze, pressure can or dry are long gone.  Last summer's home grown oregano, thyme, parsley, cilantro and basil are already depleted as are sorrel, tomatoes and brassicas.   I had hoped for a robust harvest to last all winter,  but two damp summers in a row made my gardens very attractive to lots of hungry slugs that chowed down on all of the broccoli and cauliflower leaves and then moved into the crevices of the heads.  Gross.  Compost?  Yes.  Side dish?  No. I understand that in some languages of cold weather cultures, the name for the months  of March/April are akin to "the month of hunger."  Isn't that sobering?

 

Among produce that we buy, citrus and bananas freeze well, so we have that tasty flavor throughout the winter, both the juice and the rinds, which I dry in a cold oven and save.  (I love orange rind in split pea soup, for instance). Bananas freeze well, too, both in and out of the skin.  I make a chocolate banana pudding with the frozen pulp.

 

My clever friend, Betty, reminded me that one can sprout green onions by putting the root end of any (store bought, too) onion in a shallow bowl of water.  She NEVER buys scallions.  Darn.  I forgot that.   This approach is true for many store bought vegetables with an intact root end, like celery.   Next winter, I will remember this. 

 

To supplement dwindling supplies of veggies, we stock dehydrated and freeze dried vegetables.  The reconstituted texture is not great, but they add color and nutrients to rice and stews. Dried mushrooms are particularly tasty.   The flavor varies by brand, so I encourage interested shoppers to try a small quantity before buying a case.  Betty's home dehydrated vegetables (and fruits) are much more flavorful than others that I have purchased. 

 

To all of you who have convenient access to a supermarket, you may be more alert to food inflationary prices than I am, but you can also bask in  the delights of spontaneous purchase and consumption.  What a treat!  Please bite into something juicy and crunchy today and enjoy it on my behalf!