Getting back into the swing of things, our Alaska springtime garden

So now here we are, in the middle of our second spring back in Fairbanks, Alaska after a reasonably mild winter.  In late March we started our seeds, mostly tomatoes, a mixture of beans and a few herbs.  This, I knew going into it, would be challenging since we would be going on a weeklong vacation in May.  Trying to keep little seedlings going for a week without any attention what so ever would be tough. 

Lo and behold our own dumb mistake took care of that worry. One mid April night when my husband and I were both exhausted from work we forgot the seedlings over night in our new light weight greenhouse.  The next morning we peeked in and every single one was dead, the mid 20’s temperatures killed them all. 

Our greenhouse now in early June.  A lot of tomatoes, cucumbers, bell peppers, hot peppers and believe it or not, ORANGE & LEMON TREES!

The weekend of the 25^th of April we did manage to directly sow a lot of seeds.  All kale, lettuce, radishes, turnips, broccoli rabe, spinach, yarrow, edible flowers,  multiple types of herbs and I even decided to try to directly sow some shelling beans called Carson.  Almost everything has come up and now by early June it is all flourishing, except for the beans and the turnips. 

There we have another problem.  This year we have bigger pests that once again have found our garden.  Voles.  Not only have they apparently eaten every single one of our specially ordered garlic bulbs that we planted last autumn but they have eaten any other larger seed that I planted.  After speaking with many of my neighbors, they too have noticed the increase in the vole population. 

So call me mean, but I went to war.  First, I tried sticky traps with peanut butter in the middle of the trap.  The voles proved to be too heavy for these.  They obviously would get slightly stuck but then would manage to eat all the peanut butter off the trap and then leave the now used and ruined trap behind.  So, next I grabbed the poison I used for our rat problem in Maryland.  I got to scream a few victory yells here, as I rubbed peanut butter into each and every poison block, threw them into hidden areas under our porches and within a week found carcasses of voles.  I believe we still have some frequenting our garden but not in such large numbers now.  Voles-30 some garlic bulbs and numerous bean and herb seeds along with a daylily; Me-a few voles.  I think they’re still winning.

I guess I can still be grateful that as of writing this today they have left my potatoes, my 9 year old Peony, my other daylilies, along with now all the other plants that are now in the raised beds.  I get the feeling I will be battling these little stinkers all summer long. 

As for all the other plants, we’ve purchased numerous tomato plants, strawberry plants, summer squash, zucchini, brussel sprouts, broccoli, watermelon, butternut squash, cucumbers and a couple of simple herbs like parsley,  basil, summer savory, chives, and a few varieties of mint.  I really hate to have to purchase plants now a days since I have the seeds for so many of these, but since our needed supplies list was so short this year it didn’t hurt as bad financially.  Now, if these plants produce enough for us for me to can a good amount, I’ll be really happy. Honestly, I’d love to get a really good amount of tomatoes! Last year was exceedingly cool and wet, perfect weather for kale, spinach and lettuce. Not so good for heat and sun loving tomatoes so as a result we canned several pints of green tomato salsa.  We managed to can 2 pints of spaghetti sauce which really saddened me.  We typically use a lot of tomato products in our cooking so this changed my cooking a bit this past winter since I didn’t have as many homemade tomato products on hand.

On the other hand, kale was the star of the show last year.  We had tons of it, along with salad greens both of which was actually hard to keep up with because we signed up with Rosie Creek Farm, a local farm with a CSA share.  Between our farm share and garden, we were eating salad breakfast, lunch and dinner and if someone wanted a snack, well then they could have a salad.   We did manage to can approximately 15 pints of kale, mustard greens and broccoli and brussel sprout greens. 

This year we have decided to opt out of the CSA share so now it is completely on our shoulders to produce good, healthy fresh fruits and vegetables from our own yard in a very small space.  Our goal throughout the summer is to do our best to limit our grocery shopping to the bare minimum so that we can save for another house in the near future. 

As for now, we’re stuck with what we’ve got. A medium sized townhome in downtown Fairbanks with a small urban garden.  Bees and chickens are just completely out of the question.  There is no room for those in our yard.  Those will be for the next house in the future which will hopefully have a larger yard than what we’ve currently got.