Category: Southcentral Alaska

Growing Ranunculus in Southcentral Alaska

Heidi Rader

by Megan O’Mullane I fell in love with ranunculus in the spring of 2020 when I was working for Greta Lewanski on her cut-flower farm, Turnstone Farm, in our Airport Heights neighborhood. The ranunculus was blooming ahead of everything else because she had started them so early. They had the same lush, romantic appeal as peonies but were blooming in a far wider range of colors, and I knew I had to try growing them for myself. Last year was my first season growing ranunculus in my own garden and Read More …

Why in the world would you want to keep honey bees in Anchorage, Alaska?

Jamie Lang

Honey bees in Anchorage, Alaska? Why yes, that’s my plan for summer 2022! So when a friend gives you seven Langstroth bee boxes that have been in storage for over ten years, what would you do? If you’re like me, you accept them, clean them up, repair and repaint them, and start researching, reading and watching everything honey bees. When thinking about beekeeping, some might ask why? In fact, every person I’ve told about the boxes and the bees asks why? Some recoil at the thought. Some roll their eyes at me. Read More …

What Is Wrong With My Rhubarb?

Grace York

Delicious in crisps, pies, and even a cocktail, this versatile vegetable is relatively easy to grow. Though technically a vegetable, rhubarb is an Alaskan fruit favorite! But what happens when the pie plant some gardeners choose to leave to its own devices suddenly takes a turn? Growing up we had one very large and happy rhubarb plant in our backyard. It wasn’t in a garden, wasn’t even tended to, and it did great! Our rhubarb seemed to defy most garden advice: a testament to how hardy the plant is! Crisps Read More …

Starting Berries in Winter

Grace York

An Experiment It’s February in Alaska while the rest of country is gearing up for spring. You’re walking the aisles of your local big box store and admiring the berry starts that just came in! Outside it’s still cold and dark, bright snow gleaming back at you during the short daylight hours. These starts are still dormant, save for a few brave ones with green leaves beginning to break through buds on the canes of the raspberries. Below I’ve chronicled the results of my experiment inducing spring indoors and successfully Read More …

Alaska Botanical Garden Info

Isabella Morales

Hello everyone, Its #GardenIsShe2020, and I just wanted to share some information about The Alaska Botanical Garden, located in Anchorage, Alaska! The Alaska Botanical Garden is a living museum- meaning it showcases gardens and natural Alaskan landscapes in a educational and sustainable way. They grow botanical gardens, showcase ice sculptures and workshops, natural artist opportunities, garden journalism workshops, gardening conferences, membership and donation opportunities, children’s gardening summer camps, distance and in-person learning, botanical trails, horticulture, volunteer opportunities, beginners gardening programs, online shops, weekly guides, and moose and bears awareness, along Read More …

A Passion For Growing Potatoes in Alaska

Larry Opperman

Consider the humble potato. It’s not much to look at, yet millions of people have relied on it as a significant food source for thousands of years. One only has to look at Ireland to see the importance of the potato: In 1845, when a fungus-like infestation decimated the potato crop there, nearly a million people starved, and another million were forced to emigrate to escape starvation. Scholars believe the potato originated in the Andes Mountains of South America, and an estimated 5,000 varieties of potato now exist worldwide. Today, Read More …

The Upcycled Garden

Larry Opperman
Beds Filled With Soil & Topped With Compost

Many people love the joys that come with gardening.  Are you one of them?  Think about how many gardens you’ve seen in your life and what they looked like.  A little four foot by four-foot box, a 2000 square foot in ground garden with perfectly spaced rows, hydroponic setups, or raised beds perfectly lined up it looks like a surveyor laid out the beds.  Any way you look at it, people build their gardens to their satisfaction and that’s what makes every garden out there the right design.  If it 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 …

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 …