Author: Alex Gimarc

Using Aerogarden with Heating Pad

Alex Gimarc

I wrote a few years ago about using Aerogarden for starting seeds.  Since that piece, we upgraded our model as the old one went to the Big Compost Bin in the Sky after it died.  As part of the upgrade, we added what the manufacturer calls a seed starting kit to increase the number of available slots from 6 to 23. As a review, the Aerogarden is designed to grow complete, fruiting plants hydroponically.  Many people use it for starting seeds, which it does really well for most plants, though Read More …

Putting into Practice What I learned in the Alaska Master Gardener Online Class–What Worked and What Didn’t?

Alex Gimarc

This piece will hopefully capture a bit of how the 2020 summer gardening season went.  This time around, we went into the season armed with information from the Master Gardener Course taken online at UAF in 2019.  What good is new knowledge if you don’t use it?  Better yet, if you try something new, it is always useful to actually observe and write down what you did and how it worked out. As of today, the only thing still in the ground here in Anchorage is a 37-gallon trash can Read More …

Early Starts with the AeroGarden

Alex Gimarc

In Alaska, starting plants indoors takes some effort. They need lights. They need good soil (eventually). And based on the part of the state you live in; they need to be done indoors for varying lengths of time. Here in Anchorage, we are cautioned to not plant outside until the leaves of the birch trees get to be the size of squirrel’s ears. The generally works out to be sometime in late May, sometimes a bit earlier, sometimes a bit later. We have not had much luck with starting seeds Read More …

Southcentral Gardening Thoughts Amid COVID-19 Reopening

Alex Gimarc

As the zombie apocalypse known as COVID-19 recedes into a not so distant and unpleasant memory, we make our way into spring and early summer. This year, I am armed with a modified toolkit due to the Alaska Master Gardener Online Course last fall. So, how have things gone so far? Goals I had several goals this spring in no particular order. These include Prune gooseberries, blueberries, and birch trees in the yard See if I can recover growable yacon from corms stored over the winter Change my soil mix Read More …

Crop Rotation in Raised Beds

Alex Gimarc

One of the fallouts from the Alaska Master Gardener Online course has been an appreciation of crop rotation, yet another thing I haven’t been doing. This is a bit of a planning / thought piece on how to set up a workable system.   What better time to do this than in the dead of winter? Raised Beds Many years ago, I constructed three raised beds in the lowest, wettest part of the yard, affectionately referred to as ‘the swamp’. The goal was to productively use this part of the Read More …

Vermiculture With the Worm Factory 360

Alex Gimarc

One of the science projects I’ve managed to get myself into is vermiculture. Using a Worm Factory 360 in my heated garage, my worms manufacture compost throughout the winter for my spring starts. It has nothing to do with wanting to recycle, for environmental reasons. Rather, I simply do it to have enough compost / mulch in the house to for starts in the spring. Like I said, an experiment. After a little bit of research, I decided that the Worm Factory 360, a rotating set of trays, would suit Read More …

Gooseberries – Paying Attention to Pruning

Alex Gimarc

This post is more or less an object lesson in pruning (or the lack thereof). In some ways, a cautionary tale, as I have some (a bunch) work to do after breakup next spring. I got interested in gooseberries perhaps a decade ago, once again based on Jeff Lowenfels former radio show. We ordered four of them that seemed to be robust in the gardens of south Anchorage from a nursery in the Lower 48 and put them into the garden–two Hinnomaki Red and two Hinnomaki Yellow gooseberries. The Alaska Read More …

Growing Yacon in Anchorage

Alex Gimarc

I ran across yacon in 2014 in a column by Jeff Lowenfels. He recommended it as a handsome plant that produces sweet tubers at the end of the growing season. We decided to give it a try one year and have done it every year since. The plant itself goes by several names: yacon, Bolivian sunroot, Peruvian ground apple and occasionally “yacon strawberry.’ The plant itself is related to sunflowers, dahlias, Jerusalem artichokes and other similar plants. It generally looks similar to a sunflower and grows up to 7 -8 Read More …