Wednesday 22 December 2010
Growing veggies in the frozen soil of the Alaskan north
Growing veggies up here by the Arctic Circle is a demanding job, but it provides big rewards.
Our main concerns up here are warmth and the length of day.
Winter cold remains right through May, and suddenly we get summer weather without any intervening springtime flourish. One year it was in the 20s until the middle of May, and the next weekend it was in the 80s.
Usually, however, we get breakup around the end of April, the snow disappears at the start of May, and we get sprinkles of frosts and snow right through to the first week of June. All of that means the seedlings and soils need extra help with cold frames and plastic coverings to capture the sunlight and warm the soil while protecting the plants.
The length of day provides its own challenges. For most veggies, those 22-hour days mean that we get two days of growth from one day of summer.
However, for veggies like radishes and mustard greens, those same long days prompt the plants to go from seedlings to seed bearing in record time. I've been advised to simply cover them with a sheet on long days, something that sounds easy but requires effort, something that I'm prone to avoid. Another way is to experiment with varieties which don't bolt.