Having a Garden in Alaska-By Carlyle Ellis, 



New 

 York 



MARKED EXTREMES OF TEMPERATURE, EXCESSIVE SUNSHINE IN SUMMER AND CONTRADICTORY CONDITIONS THAT UP- 

 SET EASTERN GARDEN IDEAS, AND YET PRODUCE WONDERFUL RESULTS IN RAPID DEVELOPMENT OF VEGETABLES 



THHERE are few parts of Alaska's 590,000 

 -*- square miles so far entered by white 

 men that will not produce some sort of gar- 

 den. One must except, of course, the occa- 

 sional glaciers and the frequent mountain 

 tops, but in the valleys, from the southerly 

 coast — where there is one set of conditions 

 — to the great interior plateau — where 

 there is another quite different — and even 

 well beyond the arctic circle many of our 

 common flowers and vegetables flourish. 



The variations in climate are striking. 

 All along the 3,000 miles of southern coast 

 the rainfall is heavy — from 100 to 150 

 inches a year. The summers are pleasantly 

 cool and the winter temperature seldom goes 

 much below zero. In the interior the seasons 

 are dry. Rainfall is from ten to thirty inches 

 a year, the summer days warm and the win- 

 ters so still and dry that the constant low 

 temperature is not an inconvenience. The 

 proportion of snowfall in these two areas 

 is about one foot to six. 



There are also local variations in each of 

 these areas that are distinctly marked. 

 In the great Tanana valley of the interior, 

 which seems destined for a big agricultural 

 future, there is one region warmed by sub- 

 terranean hot springs where the vegetation 

 is almost sub-tropical. Corn and melons 

 easily mature here and bring enormous 

 prices. One dollar apiece for muskmelons, 

 as an instance, is the minimum. 



The one growing factor common to all 

 Alaska, and not found in any part of the 

 United States, is the abundance of daylight 



in summer. On the Coast from the middle 

 of May till well into August there is no real 

 darkness and in clear weather the sun shines 

 twenty hours of the twenty-four. As one 

 goes north this condition is still more marked. 

 At Fairbanks, on the Tanana, an annual 

 event is the midnight baseball game on June 

 2 1 st. At Circle, where there are excellent 

 gardens, the sun never quite disappears for 

 three months. 



This great gift of sunlight does magical 

 things to the plants. The last frosts are 

 over in the valleys by the first of June, and 

 there follows a mad rush of the sap. The 

 orderly succession of more placid climes 

 is almost forgotten and there is a sort of pell- 

 mell Marathon for maturity that is at first 

 somewhat disconcerting to the newly arrived 

 gardener. There is compensation, however, 

 in the fact that a large majority of things go 

 right on blooming till the frost comes, late 

 in September. 



Most travelers and a majority of the new 

 settlers see only the gardens of the Coast belt, 

 for it is on the coast that Alaska is making 

 its most rapid progress. These gardens 

 flourish amazingly with the combination of 

 much moisture and daylight. I am espe- 

 cially fond of the gardens of Valdez. There is 

 something about the black soil of Valdez, 

 where it covers the lower end of the glacial 

 moraine that slides flatly into the tides, 

 which will not produce a lawn. Instead, 

 it gets a deep, fuzzy covering of mare's tail, 

 or of chickweed. So the Valdezians gener- 

 ally turn the entire yard into a productive 



A typical home at Valdez, Alaska, where garden art seems to lead that of building 



3.36 



area, growing lettuce and poppies and cress 

 and mignonette in the foreground, with cab- 

 bages, hardy chrysanthemums, potatoes and 

 peonies in the back, with a border of nas- 

 turtiums and radishes down the side. There 

 is something enchantingly naive, effective and 

 sensible about the plan. Here is a people 

 for whom utilitarianism and beauty go hand 

 in hand — nay! are inseparably blended, 

 unrecognizable as separate conditions. 



Anyway, my favorite Alaskan garden is 

 in Valdez. It covers half an acre with a 

 tiny box of a cabin in the centre, quite a gem 

 of a place, with a background of big cotton- 

 woods and the sort of an interior that goes 

 with a garden that blooms like magic. On 

 one side of the walk was a hedge of deep 

 crimson sweet peas, of sturdy four-foot 

 growth, that seemed always to need picking. 

 On the other a deep border of nearly black 

 Oriental poppies, and beyond that a bed of 

 the common poppy, of many hues. Flaming 

 nasturtiums climbed up the unpainted cor- 

 ner of the house, roses bloomed by the step, 

 and in many nooks and corners all about 

 one found unexpectedly a score of old-time 

 friends. The flowering tobacco (Nicotiana 

 sanderce) found congenial soil and air, and 

 its great clusters of flowers shed their night- 

 fragrance lavishly in the cool Alaskan half- 

 dusk. The mignonette spikes were three 

 inches long and the nasturtiums seemed too 

 busy making flowers to leaf. Beside the 

 poppies were experimental rows of lettuce, 

 kohl-rabi, cress and parsley, broken by a 

 brilliant bed of asters in full bloom in August, 

 though grown from seed outdoors. On the 

 other side were the root crops and the peas 

 in full bearing, bordered by a heavily bear- 

 ing hedge of red currants — the wild red 

 currants of Alaska transplanted and all 

 crimson with fine-flavored fruit. 



If I were going to have a garden in Alaska, 

 I should give much space and special care to 

 the cultivation of the native berries. At one 

 time and in one small valley I picked ripe 

 specimens of fifteen different sorts of edible , 

 wild berries. Combined, they made a 

 unique and most excellent dish. 



The problems met with in the develop- 

 ment of this garden in Valdez are practically 

 those of the entire coast. The character- 

 istic soil is a black loam, often so rich in 

 organic matter as to benefit greatly by heavy 

 dressings of lime. Much of this soil requires 

 no manuring for several years, but where the 

 morainal gravels of localities like Seward are 

 the basis considerable building up is required. 



Potatoes are the staple crop of Valdez 

 and elsewhere. The heavy rainfall makes 

 it advisable to plant whole seed and it also 

 makes it difficult to grow mealy tubers. 



All the root crops do well in the North 

 and their treatment there has no distinctive 

 features. At Seward I saw flat Dutch 

 turnips germinated outdoors the second 



