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Metlakatla makes a good point. Instead of trying to get lower-48 vegetables to grow in Alaska, why not harvest what already grows in Alaska? There are a lot of edible plants in Alaska, if you know what to look for, and it takes less time and effort than growing a garden. I still gather fiddle-head ferns in May once in a while. They are excellent steamed with butter and sauteed shallots, with a taste similar to asparagus. They also freeze very well.
Spring and fall are the best times to harvest Alaska's bounty. Everyone knows about the varies berries Alaska has to offer, but there are also lots of plants loaded with vitamins that are just as abundant. Even Devil's Club is edible (if you get them very young, before their spines harden) and very tasty sauteed in olive oil and garlic.
If one knows what to look for, one could harvest more from Alaska's wilds than one could grow in a garden. In order to truly "live off the land" one should consume what that land has to offer instead of trying to transplant plants that are not native to the land.
Good points.
This year, for the first time, I tried some Labrador tea and was surprised at how tasty it is. It grows all over the interior, too. Gathered some leaves, enough to cover two cups of boiling water inside a small pot. Let it simmer until the liquid turned a sort of golden brown, and strained it. That's all it was to it. But I don't really know of the nutritional value of Labrador tea.
By the way, as a child I grew-up helping my family farm in the tropics where it rains all the time (sort of a rain forest). What we did to grow lettuce and other veggies next to the house was to build raised garden beds. Underneath there was gravel, then sandy soil, and on top was the topsoil and compost. All around the raised beds were drainage ditches to move the excess rain away from the area. These veggies were gathered in addition to wild plants and berries. Also, my family and I grew soybeans, peanut, sugar cane, orange, papaya, mango, yucca, and several kinds of banana. We have perhaps 400-600 acres of land to farm. Then my father farmed different kinds of tobacco, but this was the business we survived from. Some of the tobacco was used for cigars, and the rest for cigarettes, but all was exported to the US by the tobacco companies based there.
Most people look at growing seasons as the only significant factor in what works and what doesn't, but there's so much more to it than that. I wouldn't advise anyone to highly depend on a garden in Alaska if they're trying to "live off the land." Too many things can happen in every part of the state that can wipe the garden out in a matter of hours or even minutes. Cool season vegetables do okay, but amending wild land to grow them in any quantity often means disturbing the land by removing the more valuable berries and other foragable plants. In other words, that scraggly little row of broccoli might provide enough yield to show up on the dinner table in some form for a few weeks, but the berry bushes you dug out to make room for it would have kept you in berries for a year.
And, as mentioned before, there's the soil. SE is a coniferous rainforest, not an alluvial riverbottom plain like Oregon's Willamette Valley. Fungal diseases are also rampant among nonnative plants there.
With that, you'd think that the indigenous tribes of the Tongass must have damn neared starved to death, but...one of the indicators of wealth among Native American peoples was the ability of the tribe to remain in one place, to establish villages rather than live as nomads. The Tlignits were the richest of them all.
By the way, as a child I grew-up helping my family farm in the tropics where it rains all the time (sort of a rain forest)
That's nice, Ray. It doesn't translate to the coniferous rainforest conditions of the Tongass, however. Most of the plants you've mentioned wouldn't survive in under the exact same conditions if planted in SE. Some people do a variation of what you've mentioned, but rainfall isn't the only factor. Keep in mind that southern SE doesn't even get enough extended daylight hours to have the same impact on plants that you farther north. I've seen summers where the gloom was so intense that even cool season vegetables made a poor showing. I've also seen entire gardens wiped out in the middle of July by 60 mph winds.
The farther north you go, the fewer varieties of plant species will be able to survive. The tropics have an almost mind boggling diversity base.
If I had ten dollars for everyone who's ever posted on this board asking about growing waving fields of grain and huge vegetable gardens because they read someplace that the frost dates were close to that of the agricultural valleys of the PNW, I could go on a vacation to the tropics.
I grew up in Fairbanks in the late 60 and 70s. At that time basically the whole state was "off the grid". I was also there when the pipeline was being built, and we had a huge influx of people from the lower 48 coming up to live and work. I noticed the ability to live an Alaskan lifestyle really comes down to psychology. Are you prone to depression? Don't do it. Are you easily bored? Don't do it. Are you in poor health? Don't do it. Being alone in the wilderness will just make all those problems worse. Unfortunately a lot of people with problems think the solution to them is to live in the wilderness of Alaska. They arrive and promptly go even crazier. It's a very extreme environment, and you are *constantly* battling the elements. This is invigorating for a certain type of person, but very harmful to other types.
Of course, these days, with the internet and satellite TV Alaska is not as remote or distinctive as it used to be. WHen I was growing up there it really was a closed off place with its own culture and distinctive people. It's probably a bit less like that now, and therefore perhaps not as romantic a destination for survivalists.
This year, for the first time, I tried some Labrador tea and was surprised at how tasty it is. It grows all over the interior, too. Gathered some leaves, enough to cover two cups of boiling water inside a small pot. Let it simmer until the liquid turned a sort of golden brown, and strained it. That's all it was to it. But I don't really know of the nutritional value of Labrador tea.
Be careful not to make Labrador tea too strong. It is a narcotic. While it is used for a wide variety of medicinal purposes, if it is too strong it can cause convulsions, paralysis, and even death. Before abortions became a medical procedure, pregnant women would drink Labrador tea in order to induce an abortion. As a weak tea it has been said to cure:
That's nice, Ray. It doesn't translate to the coniferous rainforest conditions of the Tongass, however. Most of the plants you've mentioned wouldn't survive in under the exact same conditions if planted in SE. Some people do a variation of what you've mentioned, but rainfall isn't the only factor. Keep in mind that southern SE doesn't even get enough extended daylight hours to have the same impact on plants that you farther north. I've seen summers where the gloom was so intense that even cool season vegetables made a poor showing. I've also seen entire gardens wiped out in the middle of July by 60 mph winds.
The farther north you go, the fewer varieties of plant species will be able to survive. The tropics have an almost mind boggling diversity base.
If I had ten dollars for everyone who's ever posted on this board asking about growing waving fields of grain and huge vegetable gardens because they read someplace that the frost dates were close to that of the agricultural valleys of the PNW, I could go on a vacation to the tropics.
I agree with you Met, and understand the differences relating to the two geographical locations we have referred to. UAF has quite a lot of information on the growing seasons of all Alaska regions, including SE. But your hands-on experience is more useful to people who ask questions about SE.
Be careful not to make Labrador tea too strong. It is a narcotic. While it is used for a wide variety of medicinal purposes, if it is too strong it can cause convulsions, paralysis, and even death. Before abortions became a medical procedure, pregnant women would drink Labrador tea in order to induce an abortion. As a weak tea it has been said to cure:
Coughs;
Sore throats;
Lung infections;
Chest ailments;
Diarrhea;
Kidney problems;
Rheumatism;
Headaches;
Cancer; and
Skin problems, when applied directly.
True. Whenever I make Labrador tea, which is not very often, it's quite mild. Also, there are several kinds of Labrador, all family related, but different looks and tastes.
Well, I'm only 6 years late to the party, but I just wanted to say how much I enjoyed reading every single post in this thread. So much in fact, that it convinced this lurker of many years to register for an account just to post this.
I spent a Summer on the Kenai back in '93 and loved every moment of it. No roads and only accessible by boat. I have dreams of going back someday to live somewhere in Alaska for a season or two. I had blood ties to the Kenai and in Fairbanks. Still have a cousin up there in Palmer I believe but not sure. Anyhow, all this talk on Devil's Club brought back a flood of memories of chopping Sitka Spruce for hours every day all Summer amidst the ever so present and pokey Devil's Club. I gasped when someone said it was edible, haha.
I also remember the view of Jackaloff (spelling?) peak, all aglow with glistening glaciers. I remember seeing a massive Bald Eagle for the first time of such a size, swoop down and catch a fish out of the lagoon; only to watch as it let it go to a couple of puny, but persistently harassing ravens. I remember checking on crab pots, only to find one with a six-pack of beer but no crabs. At least they were compensating thieves, and I heard it's sort of a tradition up there of sorts. I must have filleted about a hundred salmon and 50 halibut (quite literally) during that Summer. Pretty intense but hot damn, I became pretty skilled with a filet knife
Once during that Summer on the Kenai, I spotted the whispy smoke of a camp fire off in the distant spruce about 5 miles away. Not long later, I noticed that whisp grow to a smoke column. Next thing you know, the local community of saners (spelling?) and I are all speeding out towards a budding forest fire, about 20 in our flotilla. We saved the forest from some camper's stupidity. They evidentaly left their fire burning as they went out to go on a hike as indicated by a chalkboard that they had with a note for someone else coming in late to their camp. I pulled out one of their sleeping bags, soaked it in sea water (thank God it was a beach fire) and proceeded to smack out the flames. The other bags got yanked too by others. Someone brought a pump and we had a chain gang going with buckets of water. There were trees starting to flare up and those trees were dry as in dead dry (since all around the coast there after an earthquake settled the land, all the Spruce closest to the water died from the salt water and so it was like a tinder box). Embers and smoke everywhere and burning branches falling and spitting sparks on us. It took 20 of us over an hour to get it put out. It must have been about a 1/4 acre fire spread by the time we got it under control. Right as we put it out the last of the flames, the Forestry Service rolls up in their boat, and with expected authority, they say, "OK, thanks guys, we'll take it from here". HAHA. We left a big note on that chalkboard of theirs and wrote, "Only you can prevent forest fires". The entire area around their campsite was completely charred, but we saved those fool's tents. It was like this perfect little circle around their tents in the middle of a war zone. Their bedding was completely destroyed needless to say and justifiable given the circumstances. It was going to be a cold night (or whatever you call it when it's night but the Sun's shining, lol) for them I'm sure.
Anyhow, now I'm just reminiscing, but the point is, you sure do have some magical land up there. I too will join you lot someday. For off-grid? Maybe, but not to start. I figure Anchorage to begin with and then scout around and see what's up. See if my Costa Rican wife can handle a real Winter up there!
I have this fantasy of doing the HG thing only with stone-age tools and wear leathers and furs and sleep in a sod hut without any modern conveniences whatsoever. I guess it's just my "inner cave man" wanting to break free, and I think I would surely perish and my wife would surely leave me, haha.
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