Gardens In the arctic ...money....and a quick start giude

I have dove in and now I am raising money to put garden boxes into household here in Anaktuvuk Pass Alaska!  You can donate to our cause here:  GARDENS IN THE ARCTIC.  I tried including as much info as possible but feel free to ask questions!  Please feel free to copy the address and email it to friends and family and to share via facebook! 

I am also pursuing funding beyond the requested $4,000 simply because I will need more boxes than planned...which is super awesome because more families are interested than I thought would be!  And I really want to do set ups that are big enough for the families to be able to get good nutrition out of them all summer long.  I really appreciate any type of funding leads but keep in mind that our window is short....We start our first seedling inside the school mid-April and our plants have to be outside by June 1st...and I am NOT a non-profit....just simply a person that believes that this will work.  And I am fully committed to making it work!

Though I am doing this here only in Anaktuvuk Pass, I have been getting tons of questions about other people in other arctic villages that want to start small gardens.  So I thought I would post a primer on what types of things I using and where I am getting stuff.  Keep in mind that I have a few constraints.... This is beginner friendly, which is why I am going with a set up that is not homemade.  Later on if someone is interested on going beyond these small boxes I will be happy to help!  This set up is for extremely short and cool growth periods....ours here in AKP is 60 days.  So the plants that I am pointing out to you are specific to that type of gardening.  This is not the cheap way to do it.  But the most expensive bits are re-usable. 

To green house or no?
If you live on the coast in the arctic I would suggest building a basic greenhouse.  At most all you need is to frame out with 2 x 4's a lean-to on the SOUTH side of a building (or just where you get the most sunlight and the least amount of the cold winds).  Buy some heavy plastic and staple that on there.  leave a flap so that you can get in there ...and viola.  A greenhouse.  I have bought cheap plastic off amazon.com before (heavy duty construction sheeting works),  but all you need is something that will cut the wind, hold in heat, and let in light.  The coast has tons more wind in the summer than us inland, not to mention salt and fog.  That thin layer of plastic will move your garden south in temperature by 100 miles.  I have also seen some of these quick greenhouses with two layers of plastic (with a gap of air in between) and those are neat because you actually moved your garden 200 miles instead of 100.   Be aware that just because it's foggy and rainy there is still sun rays making it to your plants!

Tips: Buy the thicker construction plastic and it will last longer.  I got two summers out of it. If you have money to spend you can look at the plastic used for greenhouses that last way longer and are made for that purpose.  You can also use panels made from all sorts of stuff like acrylic, plexi-glass, fiber glass etc.....

More tips:  Add rocks to the floor of your greenhouse to hold more warmth that will be released at night... create some way to vent the air ( a flap that is easy to leave open at both ends) just in case you get a freakishly hot day which can kill young plants.  

Garden Boxes
I have built my own but for beginners you can purchase these: EARTH BOX which you can also find on Amazon.com HERE and if you have Prime you get the shipping free!  The boxes are re-usable and the next season you will only have to buy the covers and the fertilizer and dolomite. 

Tip: Buy the darker colored boxes or spray paint your boxes black so that they absorb more heat from the sun.

Soil
The tundra is notoriously imbalanced in nutrients.  For beginners I suggest buying and importing soil.  Have a relative ship some for you from the city. Or buy potting soil online.  You can also get this neat stuff called coconut coir (click HERE) that you add water to and it expands to make tons of soil...just be aware that you have to add stuff to it like compost and fertilizer.  There is simply so much to LEARN about soil to be able to use tundra that it usually freaks people out a bit.  If you DO however want to learn how to use soil from your tundra neighborhood then I am happy to jabber with you! It is literally the ONE thing I obsess about with my own garden. 

Fertilizer
You will ALWAYS need fertilizer.  There are some things to know.  Like organic or chemical?  Chemical fertilizers are usually funky colors like blue and the type you mix with water like miracle grow, and organic fertilizer is usually funky smelling and brownish.  I always push for organic because chemical fertilizers will essentially 'kill' your soil and make it very hard to use in the future and you will have to buy and bring in new soil.  You also will be eating chemicals.  The other thing to think about is that you will have to put fertilizers in your soil before planting....use a slow release type .  It will make a big difference!  I use this HERE. Or something similar.  I also make my own fertilizer but that is another topic to talk about off to the side!

Tips: always good to google for pictures of what happens to your plants if you feed them TOO MUCH fertilizer.  You can over feed them and kill them!

Water
Many people don't think about this much but when you live in a tiny arctic village you kind of have to. Our drinking water is full of chemicals.  We filter our water to drink or bring home spring water when we can but for the garden I almost ALWAYS use rain water.  Never pour on super cold water as it will shock your plants.  If you know you are going to be using city water then fill a bucket with water and let it sit over night next to your plants and let the chlorine evaporate as much as possible. The earth boxes are neat because you never have to actually pour water on the top!  This prevents problems with mold and such.

Seeds
I am a bit of a seed hoarder!  haha but be ready to BECOME one.  Some good places to start are these to online place:  BEST COOL SEEDS and FOUNDROOT 

Tips: try stuff you never thought you would like or even if you don't know how to use them.  We found our that we LOVE kale (not the variety you get at the grocery stores), chard, and arugula.  Try plants for the heck of it and you might be surprised.  I like to have a few boxes of 'fresh' cut greens like romaine lettuce (two types), mustard (the leaves are amazing in salads), a leaf lettuce, and green onions.  A box or two of 'cooking' greens like chard and kale and turnips (later you can eat the roots but the greens are FANTASTIC).  A few summer squash plants, tomatoes, radish, peas, broccoli, and some boxes of plants I just want to try...like corn, melons, edible flowers and such.  Make SURE you leave your greenhouse open for the bugs on the hot days so they can pollinate your plants so they can produce fruits.  OR you can learn how to do it your self...I do it by hand for my squash.  I still squeal when I get surrounded by bees in the garden but I have gotten to the point that I don't run anymore. lol  You need pollinators for your plants to make yummy things.  Which is hilarious because I know that most Arctic Alaska Natives are terrified of them!

Starts: Starts are what people call baby plants that you can grow yourself inside or buy.  Some plants need more than 60 days to grow and 'starting' them inside ahead of time is an option.  I have a grow light and small pots and soil inside that I use.  I usually start around mid April with tomatoes and peppers.  Beginning of May I start flowers, herbs, melons and such. Anything needing more time than the 60 days or so needs to get a head start.  If you are looking in catalogs the description will have 'days' for each plant.  It's a whole new world of planting though I will be happy to jabber about it to anyone interested! 

Extra things to get:
A frost cover - Keep your eye on the weather forecast and if it drops below 32 degrees run out there and cover your plants.  You only need it in the spring really while your plants are young. 

scissors - just to use for cutting plants or dead parts of plants.  I also use them to cut off leaves to eat from my lettuce plants. 

Thermometers - for your greenhouse or an outside thermometer near your boxes temperature will become important!

Camera - To show everyone your awesome plants!  It also helps later on when you want to remember details about your garden...modern digital photos come with an imbedded date so it's nice to have!

Some place to keep your seeds dry and cool.  A shoe box on a back shelf will work.  You can use them for a few years if you keep them in good shape depending on variety.

Books - I have tons!  On everything from soil, to compost, to seed saving.....everyone should invest in a few good ones.  Let me know if you need suggestions!



This is not a full discussion on this topic but it's a good start.  If you think I should at some stuff let me know!

I know there is tons of amazon links but if your rural village it's one f the few cheaper places that will ship to you.  Feel free to add other places to get stuff in the comments below! The more the merrier!

New stuff going on....

I think every writer goes through this period of enormous self doubt....and I'm struggling with it right now I think.  I have about ten posts that I have written ...rough drafts.....and I never quite allow them to become REAL.  Hopefully winter will make me brave!

New things going on:  Baby has a couple of new teeth.  The weather here is horribly horribly WARM.  I have a new product out...a moss soap! See pic below.  The chickens are still going strong. I do plan on culling my flock by half next year, but I also want to get a bunch of new chickens next spring...I'm thinking five replacements for the culling of the original ladies and maybe another five meat chickens to raise over the summer, the foraging type.  I'm going to expand the run a bit and add a space to put the new guys and also use that space to raise baby chickens. I was really hoping one of my chickens would turn out to be a boy, but it looks like I'm going to have keep shipping in chicks till I get a good breeding boy.  I have taken up crochet and knitting.  We survived the Fall time rounds of the flu and came out a few pounds lighter ...  I hope this finds you all healthy and happy and ready to enjoy the holidays!  I'm dreaming of mys spring time garden and baby chicks already!

My garden is under snow.  I replanted a bunch of strawberries in the back bed and I' hoping they are going to survive! The chicken run is snow free this time, I have learned that my flock HATES walking on snow!

two teeth!

New natural anti-bacterial soap using spicy essential oils, healing stinkweed oil, and exfoliating/healing wild crafted arctic moss.  More info at: www.SalmonberryOrigins.Etsy.com

Finished a couple of drawings....a series I am working on that combines vibrant modern colors with ancient Inupiaq markings and 'x-ray' concept that is found in our historical art. This was originally concepts for a series for a public space but was deemed to 'controversial' as it referred to old religious type markings.  www.SalmonberryThoughts.Etsy.com

a bowhead whale from that seriesin vibrant green.  www.SalmonberryThoughts.Etsy.com

Pics for a lazy afternoon...

Just going through photos....found some that I don't think I have posted before. 

Hope his finds you all healthy and warm! 

Introducing Our baby girl, stealer of hearts and sleep....

A small drawing....caribou tracks through the wilderness

peek a boo.....click and get a closer look at what is spying on us!

hurumph...

I miss summer and all her finery!

Motherhood.....

Late May our first child was born in the wee hours of a warm muggy morning.  We happened to be adopting but I was lucky enough to have been there for her since the beginning, and was also lucky enough to be part of her birth.  As you can imagine we have been busy since then!  I only have now recently been claiming my brain back from sleep deprivation...

Crawling out of the lovey baby newborn haze is difficult!  But I'm sure you will all be seeing more of her on this blog.  I have found a renewed interest in writing since Baby has come into our life.... I think it is because I feel like I more aware of the world and its shape and contours, and of my own place in it.  I imagine what it would be like if my own mother wrote a blog before she passed....

Here is Baby....  Our house has blossomed in bright spots of Pink in every hue....since before her we didn't own anything pink at all....and we adore her....adore her so much....

Deep litter failure....kinda....

Just a quick chicken post!

It's been a while since I posted so I thought i would make sure I post about my FAILURES....or hindsights....just as reminder that with all the planning I did I completely failed in some aspects!

Our winter finally...wintered...and we had gotten down to -65 degrees at one point.  The chickens were handling the cold fine.  They weren't ecstatic about it, but they were showing no real signs of stress besides slowing down on the egg making.   As most know I have been using the deep litter method in my coop to try and heal heat it up a bit.  I started with a small amount of river sand left over from the summer that I couldn't quite get out, then I added a layer of pine shavings, then a layer or bed straw.  I added some straw here and there and made sure to sprinkle BOSS every once in a while so that the chickens could mix it up a bit.  I know they were mixing it up a bit because some mornings I would go in there and it looked like small bombs went off, as there were holes in the bedding everywhere. 

Fast forward to the deep freeze...

I believe that some of the bedding must have gotten wet, and then froze.  In fact I think back on those weeks of heavy cold and I don't remember really seeing any of their customary digging pits for a while.  I figured that for some reason the lowest layer of the deep litter froze solid.  I figured when it started warming up and it was okay for the chickie to go out in the run then I would go in there and do a big stir. 

Fast forward to the crazy WARMTH....

so we went from -65 degrees to 25 degrees in the matter of a week....and the temperatures stayed above 10 degrees at night.  Everything began dripping and melting.  The layer of frozen stuff at the bottom of the coop began composting at a incredibly fast rate, and was being fed by what I assume was frozen moisture that melted.  So the other day I open it up and get a whiff of ammonia.  I can guess that it means there is moisture in their somewhere where it isn't suppose to be and that the ventilation wasn't taking care of it.  I also noticed the chickies weren't digging down into the bedding at all. So I got my chicken coop outfit on....coveralls, poopy boots, face mask and rubber gloves got all the chickies into their run on a warm day, and dug into the bedding.  It was SUPER hot.  The coop filled immediately with hot humid moisture, literally billowing from the coop floor. The bottom layer was rich and dark and way too moist.  It smelled like a mix of really great compost, and ammonia.

I would be excited but I'm months away from actually having a garden.  We still have at least three feet of snow on my beds.  So I ended up having to remove most of the composting stuff with too much moisture and put them in garbage bags next to the coop.  Because apparently I forgot to create a space for the compost!

*smacks head*

I left some of the more drier stuff in there and just added more bed straw and mixed it up a bit.  I dosed the chickens with some oregano oil in their water to try and head off any type of respiratory illnesses they might get but so far they don't show signs of getting sick.  I also have been leaving all of the ventilation slats open....at least during the day when the temperatures are more mild.

So...

Any advice will be much appreciated! 

The great part is that I am taking an online Cold Climate Permaculture design course, so it really makes me aware of what better planning and thought would have helped out with!