Gardeners, farmers feel effects of cool summer
Published Sunday, July 27, 2008
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FAIRBANKS — Like many people in Fairbanks, farmers have felt a chill in the air.
Recreational gardeners and commercial farmers said they have felt moderate effects of a cooler summer.
Wendy Anderson, director of the Fairbanks Community Garden, said compared to previous years, crops are behind by three weeks.
Diane Claassen said her plot at the Fairbanks Community Garden is one of the gardens that is three weeks behind.
“Everything is stunted,” she said as she worked in her garden plot.
Claassen works at the University of Fairbanks Cooperative Extension Service and fields calls from people about their gardens. She said the most common problem early in the season was seeds not growing, but now she said she receives calls about plants with many leaves but no fruits, vegetables or blooms.
Cold soil plays a large factor in both problems, Claassen said. She instructed gardeners to replant their seeds. But now, the cooler temperatures are keeping the soil cold, which locks up phosphorus, a mineral needed for plants to produce more than just leaves. Claassen suggests spraying a phosphorus-rich substance directly onto the plants to combat the problem.
Gardeners also have had to get more hands on to help alleviate another colder-temperature problem: lack of pollination. Claassen said the cold has caused a lack of bees, which usually pollinate the plants. She said some gardeners have resorted to pollinating their plants by hand using paint brushes dipped in pollen.
A couple of plots over at the community garden, gardener Peter Rinkleff hadn’t seen any major setbacks because of the weather. In fact, his strawberries were doing better than in previous years. Rinkleff said his tried-and-true Alaskan crops — potatoes, cabbage, lettuce, raspberries and radishes — are doing well.
“You just have to know what works and do a little experimentation,” he said.
This year, he is trying his hand at growing artichokes, soybeans and seven types of potatoes.
He also said there are methods to provide some kind of protection from the cold. From covering things with plastic to raised beds, there are a number of options to keep the cold out.
At the community garden, there also are gardeners with different expertise levels and backgrounds who are willing to talk plants with their fellow gardeners.
“Everyone here is willing to discuss their gardening,” Rinkleff said.
Rinkleff isn’t the only person who’s not sweating over the weather. Pete Mayo of Spinach Creek Farm said the cooler temperatures have had a minimal effect on his crops. Mayo said so far this growing season only his zucchinis have been stunted by the weather. The rest of his crops, especially the leafy plants, are still thriving.
Mayo and fellow Tanana Valley Farmers Market vendor, Irene Wood, said the growing season isn’t over yet, so it’s hard to say if the cold weather will have a lasting effect on this year’s haul.
“You just have to go with whatever happens,” Wood said.
Community Discussion
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Cooler than normal summer....much less sun spot activity....Hummm
No sun spots = more clouds = lower temperatures.
Surely it can't be the sun that controls the temperature of the planet!
Guess it doesn't matter that it is warmer than normal over most of the planet, huh? The fact that all of North America makes up only 4.8% of the planets surface and Alaska makes up, what, somewhere less than 1% doesn't click with you yet? Gotta think globally, not locally!
Yet, the North Pole is melting...http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-north-pole-is-melting
Weird! What Fruities!
Oh, really? Then I suppose the Argos buoys recorded increasing temps over the last five years? Actually, no. They recorded a slight decrease. lakloey1 is right about the sunspots. See for yourself. http://www.spaceweather.com/ We are more than a year overdue for the next cycle to start. Based on almost 400 years of observations (not ideology), if this current solar minimum continues, globally, as well as locally, we will be in very big trouble. There is an excellent article on this here. http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles...
Global warming is not about the climate. It is about control. Who needs facts when you have ideology?
Think globally? How about solar systematically Patrick?
Ever hear of volcanos? You know, hot magma and gases? Surely they have no effect on ice? The article referenced by Confused of course, makes no mention of volcanic activity. http://www.canada.com/topics/news/story....
Big Oil? Is that you? ...if you are not, well then they really appreciate you doing their work for free, Thanks Fruities...
"But, but, but I have articles that dont point to their source material...but, but, but, they have scientists that prove that GW is bunk!! But, but, but, Al is in it for the money!!"
Go ahead fruities...keep drinking and handing out the kool-aid. And you do it all for free! What a great country!
Stuttering in the face of facts? Could it be that MMGW is only one theory? Could it be that there are other facts that don't fit in?
Seems to me Al Gore, prophet/messiah of the new religion is passing out the Kool-Aid! Time will tell though.
The Old Farmer's Almanac for Alaska called this weather. One thing we do know, the Fair starts Friday so we should be in for rain.
Keep up the good work, lakloey1. They sure do appreciate it.
There is another article in this very day's DNM that says that Alaska is on the frontlines of global warming.
I find that pretty interesting, that we can both be cooler and warmer at the same location at the same time. But then again, I'm not a scientist.
no g, your not...that much is clear.
I was driving I-90 across Eastern Washington about two weeks ago. Corn, which by this time should have been 6+ ' tall with tassels, was 2-3', no tassels. Clearly behind schedule, as are crops in Alaska. The thing that discredits the folks who are pushing the MMGW issue is their refusal to consider all the facts and just put their fingers in their ears and say "lah, lah, lah, the debate is over". Truth and facts can stand on their own without the need for kool-aid consumption. Here is an article about more than a few scientists who DON'T think the debate is over. http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?f...
aughhhh the old worldnetdaily postings!! Got to love the FAUX FACTS people! Man o Man! 99, you got to do better than that!
http://echochambers.wordpress.com/2008/0...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnew...
http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sh...
http://www.cfif.org/htdocs/legislative_i...
just google "31000 scientist global warming" LOTS more articles than these here, NOT at worldnetdaily, Confused...
99 just because Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck and Rush told you to go google "31000 scientist global warming" does'nt mean everyone is sheep like you? Its the new Google BOMB, silly Fruities always fall for that! But, hey! 31000 that is quite a number you got there...how is our North Pole doing this year? Under WATER! Really, but it is sooooo cold here!
Keep looking at your navel agent99, good luck!
Here is the actual petition the 31,000 signed:
We urge the United States government to reject the global warming agreement that was written in Kyoto, Japan in December, 1997, and any other similar proposals. The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind.
There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.
Note the standard response of the far left when confronted with facts. They insult and obscurate. btw, Confused, did you not read the article about arctic volocanoes? Inconvenient fact?
Global warming? Don't any of you talk about how your gardens doing? I have an acre garden, grow all the taters, carotts, beans, brocculli, cabbage, beets that we need; live outta the garden in the summer. Even trying sweet tatoes under plastic this year; the cold weather has put a damper on that idea. Put in 300 lb taters and they'll make it but late, just flowering now, since it stopped raining and getting some sun. Usually eating new reds by now, not this year. Planted 10,000 bag of carott seed but no rain in June and cold weather;; carotts & beans ain't gonna make it this year;;; first frost will happen beginning of August. We seem to get a cold summer every 4 or 5 years. I remember a few years back, went down to 15 degrees on July 19th, lost about everything. The wifey has put up around 30 gallon bags of brocculli, but should have had alot more. My early (goliath) variety has real small heads, not much there. The longer days variety are doing better, no heads yet though. My Calabria, Italian everybearing all summer brocc is doing well. I planted over 2000 brocc plants in greenhouse; figured I'd be giving brocculli away this year, no way that happening. Trying new special Halupki cabbage this year; for making cabbage rolls, no center ridge in leaves.
Got a hundred foot roll of plastic, might be covering the beans before long. Already thinking about nx year's garden. Anybody tried alfalfa pellets for fertilizer? Didn't work so well for me, prefer that good old peat moss dirt, without the turnip bettles of course.
How's your gardens doing?
I watched this video the other day, and the speaker clearly explains why facts and truth and logic don't matter to the left. It is because they reject the very concepts of logic and reason. Evan Sayet, former producer of the Arsenio Hall Show and former liberal, describes this phenomenon. Here it is: http://www.heritage.org/Press/Events/ev0...
I have read your posts all the way through, you use Right-wing sources for fact? I simply pointed out that you always do this to cover your point. I will continue to point this out to you and all your other FAUX FACTS to make sure that you understand that when you echo NEOCON talking points you are not getting the whole picture....
I hope that you will go to some other sources before you continue with this silly angle.
Thanks for the garden comment, Zhurh. How many in your family does this garden feed?
And your sources are what, Confused? Left wing sources? Glenn and Rush did not mind-control the 31,000 scientists. Silly angle? It is not silly that the United States is on a destruction course with the Global Warming lie. Look at the story about pollution in Beijing at the Olympic opening ceremony. You think that the Chinese give a rat's patootie about carbon output? They weren't projected to surpass the US in carbon output until 2020. They did so two years ago. We are cutting our economic throats based a a NON-PROVEN theory. How many true believers in MMGW have sold their cars and turned off their electricity and stopped oil deliveries?
ymbc, stop commenting unless you have something pertinent to say.
you must be a relative of gw shrub.
Can Someone "Please Tell Me" when this "Global warming" is going to start this Year ! My garden is To COLD to Grow !
It is acceptable for China to dump stuff heavily into the atmosphere. Their greenhouse gasses are local so it does not impact the global greenhouse gasses of the United States.
agent99, I give you
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-...
you give me heritage and world net?
P.S. Lost, really, you are asking me to contribute?
YouMustBConfused
Glock, maybe you could petition Algore to build an enormous house next to yours or come up and fly his Gulfstream around and around Fairbanks to warm your garden.
sorry, I forgot this was your PERSONAL blog site, at least it appears to be on this blog, are you like 12 or something? YouMustBConfused.
Note that Confused's article says "atmospheric patterns" and makes no mention of hot water. Of course it must be the two-three percent of the 380 PARTS PER MILLION of CO2 that we humans produce that is melting ice. Silly me.
If it were for oil. politicians and weather in Alaska, what would we have to talk about. Complete strangers can carry on long conversations about these topics and never get bored.
12? Thanks, Lost...great comeback.
Sean, is that you??? "fly his Gulfstream" how do you do it!? Funny stuff!
You got that right, woodman...
any opinions on McCain picking our Sarah for VP?
So I guess this is this FIRST TIME IN HISTORY that the climate has gotten warmer? hmmmmmm someone MUST have traveled back in time and built suv's, factories, semi's and other atmospheric destroyers.
OR maybe mankind isn't responsible for every little thing to go wrong with this planet.
China (polluting and they dont give a rats#@$!) comments in 3...2....1
No offense 99; I must be the only guy who gets tried af all the global warming politics that'll never change anyway, ha ha.
Living out here in Eagle, hauling food in gets expensive, so we try to grow what we can; just 4 of us. We always grow more than we ever need but enjoy the garden. No joke, I'd rather work in garden than pick fish net, but rather go out and kill moose or caribou over everything. Also since there's no hockey or football, I'd prefer playin around in the garden with the wife watchin everything grow over dir tv after the bugs go in. Something about talking, laughing together over sitting like mo mos glued to the lifetime channel; that's some bad stuff for the head you know.
I usually get 3500 lb tatoes. We end up with a thousand lb in basement, give about a dozen friends 100 lb each, and since the Indians are better than most the White people out here (no joke sharing, easy going, nonjudgemental) I always have a bunch of them come up and dig about thousand lb for themselves. Last year wife had 57 bags of carotts in freezer and I had couple hundred lb sanded, only maybe 15 bags still in freez. Nothin better than moose or bou with tatoes & carotts in big pot on woodstove.
I wish I could really store cabbage, don't work for me too well. My wife come from long line of hunkies who cook up the best cabbage rolls imagineable. Eat all kinds of slaw too. End up giving the Indians whatever I can't use mostly and they appreciate it too. They all have gardens but nowhere near size of mine.
Boy I wish I could grow sweet corn, guess I need to build an acre greenhouse.
But what's best is walking out and eating outta the garden. I've been microwaving brocc for the last month, my lunch everyday. And just something about them new iditareds; rub the wet skins off, slice, and fry up with onions; my kinda eating. Missed my calling I guess, should have been a farmer, ha. I want to hear about your gardens, finally got a garden thread and all.
None taken, Zhruh. How many hours each year do you estimate you spend gardening? I really like the idea of growing my own food, just seem too busy with day job and woodworking on the side to do so.
Dear Zhurh,
I almost missed your post about your garden what with all the sniping and bickering going on. Funny how an article about local gardens can start such pointless exchanges with factoids being flung from both sides. Get a grip people. You are not about to change either sides opinions or beliefs berating each other. Now go to your rooms until you can play nice.
Anyway, our garden is struggling. Glad to hear that you got some broccoli. Ours has only produced meager servings this year. The zuchinni are not producing while the summer squash have finally taken off. The peas are now flowering and we hope there will be enough to freeze. The strawberries are growing like crazy and now we just have to keep the dog from eating all of them.
Just bought a house last year, so this is my first garden here in the interior. My strawberry yield was excellent, lettuces are growing well, and I've harvested 2 cucumbers, 2 zucchini, and a handful of green beans. Tomatoes seemed to flower early on but fruit is lacking. My major problem is with my root veggies. I have wonderful foliage, but no root. It looks nice looking out on the garden, but there are no carrots, beets or radishes to speak of. Any suggestions? (P.S. I have no idea what varieties I planted, but I stuck with the Alaska seed Co., thinking that was a safe bet.)
cover your plants with a visquine tent to keep them warmer.
Our garden has been slow as well. Seriously missing my wife's good broccoli. So's my son, one of the few kids I've ever known who asks for broccoli by name.
You Must Be Confused: You must be bored.
cover the soil around your plants with black visquine
I think folks would might like some ideas on what is the best methods for keeping moose out of the garden other than high fencing.
No, TAC, just having a awesome day!
I started my garden a bit late but am getting some produce. My baby carrots are lovely & I have been enjoying some wonderful snap peas. Harvested some lettuce the other day, made for a great salad w/ home made dressing. My potatoes haven't flowered yet, the radishes have bolted & I am just getting my 1st flowers on the broccoli.
My zucchini is what is really concerning me. I have some flowers, but they are of the wrong sex, so only one visible fruiting. Seeing as the zukes are the basis of my Christmas gifts this year, that worries me!
My strangest plant is my corn, it is tasseling, however it is only a foot tall! Very funny looking. =)
For those of you out there who like garden talk, we have an Alaska Gardening group on Yahoo, come check us out!
Good gardening!
Love to watch the sheep, thats all.
Zhurh: Something else to do with cabbage: saurkraut. Lots of good recipes online, but make sure you use pickling salt, and not the iodized kind. You can use a regular five-gallon bucket if you can find one that is food grade. If it's used, clean it well with a bleach solution. We grow our lettuce in a greenhouse. We have been eating lettuce for nine weeks now. Our snap peas are over seven feet tall and are curling out of the top of the greenhouse vents. What a sight! We only plant heirloom seeds, ones that are free of corporate patents ;) The best peas, IMHO, are the Amish Snap Peas. Like I said, seven feet tall, bearing for weeks now, and still growing! We have really good luck with Oak Leaf and Deer Tongue lettuce. Also Rainbow Chard, Purple Top Turnips, and most any kind of collards. This year has been a challenge with the coolness, but the unpredictability and the thrill of figuring out how to manage are what make gardening fun for us. Well, that and thumbing our nose at the mushy things that pass for vegetables at the Corporation, er, grocery store. Zhurh and others who want to preserve vegetables: check out the book Stocking Up. It has been printed since the 1950s, and updated regularly. Best book on the market for how to store home-grown food using both old and modern ways. Other good books: Gardening When It Counts and Victory Garden. Both are old-school books and are designed for those of us who are serious about growing food in tough economic times.
My grandmother lived in the north western region of Alaska next to a hot springs. She use to talk about the vegetables and yes fruits she grew in winter. She was born before 1900. Growing food in Alaska has been around for a long time. Glad to see the tradition continues.
Boy, I'm glad to see some others eatin outta the garden. Hey, this thread motivated me to early dig some iditareds. They were only size of golf balls, but were they good. Nothing beats, new tatoes, ham, and onions fried up with all kinds of butter for me, ha ha.
I have a big 150 year old crock, use to make 21 day pickles in her. Never tried sauercraut, need to as we eat it a couple times a month and for several days when we do; always better the nx day too. My wife makes stuffed cabbage with tomatoes & sauercraut and mashed tatoes. I'm sick of buying cabbage at local store for 4 bucks each, should have all kinds in 2 more weeks. I wish I could store it over the winter.
Wife and I have always had big garden, summers off. We only spend 4-5 hours in garden but its pretty much a pleasure.
Couldn't imagine a hot spring near the house, be heaven when its minus 65.
I just get my seeds from stokes, pretty cheap when you buy big bag and they'll last over 10 years.
I can't resist. What's a 21 day pickle?
"Eastern Washington corn, which by this time should have been 6+ ' tall with tassels, was 2-3', no tassels."
The corn on South Cushman has had tassels for weeks! Check it out.
I too would like that 21 day pickle recipe! Another good one is spicy pickled' garlic carrots.
Jokin or not; when you make pickles, either dill or sweet; you have to get the mixture (alum or sugar ect) just right. You soak cucumbers in crock mixture for 21 days, but have to skim off the top every 7 days if I remember correctly. If I could grow tons of cukes, I'd be back to making pickles & relish, not in ak though.
I have that stocking up book, but only seeds I really save are the flowers wife wants to grow. Need to start I guess.
Something else, I have to grow zuchinni in greenhouse to really get alot, but it does awful well in there.
No - it's something I've never heard of, so it sparked my curiosity. Thank you. I prefer dill, but either way sounds hard to get them right. My grandmother has a garden that one could lose themselves in...I'll have to ask her if she knows how to do those.
Oooh. Spicy pickled garlic carrots sound amazing! Share that one too!
Zhurh- what's this years crop lookin' like?
I'm doing my darndest & can't seem to anything other than the cole crops to grow. Even used black plastic. Usually I get at least enough after the kids attack it to carry over a little way. This year---nothin! The radishes were eaten at first site. (no new ones) The onions didn't come up after 3 ( yes 3) separate plantings and the corn is just plain sad! the cabbage and califlower I would gladly give to the moose if there was any there!
My thoughts---- Bring on global warming!
I may be able to feed my family one more year!
This year was sooo weird, all the cool weather is not letting any of my snap beans actually form, they have flowered, but the little beans are not growing at all. All my snow peas, bunching onions, cucumbers are doing suprisingly well. and one thing that has really suprised me this year were my golden ground cherries, they are doin sooo well, has anyone else grown those?
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