Our garden, which we carved out of the birch forest, is still partially covered with snow but we’ve got tomato and cucumber seedlings started in our house.
The growing season up here is compacted with fewer frost free days than most places, but the days are long, about twenty-two hours of daylight on Summer Solstice.
Here’s our garden mid-summer last year. For perspective, the fenced in area is about 50 feet long and 30 feet wide.
And here are a few yummy remnants from last year’s harvest.
It took several years to build this garden. All the raised beds—which help keep the soil warm—I built from previously used wood.
The seven-foot tall fence is to keep all the moose out.
Some of our tomatoes ripen in the green house.
But some don’t. These we hang by the vine on a wall in our house and they ripen over the weeks as fall changes to winter.
I made a lot of mistakes building our garden and with gardening. Too many to list, but I learned, and continue to learn, a lot from gardening and have revised many of my old ways. But I still try new things too.
Like the corn I started too late that didn’t mature.
Or the beans that everyone said wouldn’t transplant well—mine did fine.
Like writing, you find some things that work and perfect them, but hopefully you keep bringing in the new, and that adds to the richness of whatever it is you are working on, and to your writing life in general. You get your hands dirty.
Any other gardeners out there turning the soil? Or writers getting their hands dirty? How’s it going?
Yum.
We have started the garden, green beans are my personal favorite.
True, the green beans are so good. I hope you have a great crop!!
Hi, Paul–blog-to-blog! I’ve got tomatoes, cucumbers, delicata and butternut squash (this year’s experiment), and Little Prince eggplants (last year’s failed experiment that I couldn’t resist trying again). Starting purple broccoli this weekend and transplanting what I can of the already planted flats (see Mattie’s Pillow).
Let me know when you guys want a truckload of horse manure!
Thanks, Cindy!! I’ve been wanting to try to grow eggplant, maybe next year.
I love gardening! I’ve got everything in the indoor greenhouse until all this darn snow melts. And my husband is building our first raised bed this spring- I’m so excited!
This year we’re going all out- four types of tomatoes, summer squash, cucumbers, zucchini, bell peppers, jalapenos, basil, rosemary, thyme, lettuce, onions, potatoes, and rainbow carrots. My daughter picked that last one out.
I love summers in Alaska!
Stephanie, hopefully your snow will be gone soon. Enjoy those new raised beds!
I am getting so excited about starting our garden this year. Last year, we finally put an8 foot deer (no moose in our area .. hehe) fence around it so they wouldn’t eat all our harvest. the year before they ate almost everything … including the jalapeno leaves!! (though not the jalapeno’s themselves, not that there were many after the leaves were gone)
your garden looks amazing there. nothing like pushing your hands into Mother Earth, is there?
Tess, deer eating jalapeno leaves, I’ve never heard of that. I hope your garden is bountiful and the deer stay on the outiside. I’m guessing they can jump pretty high if you have an 8 foot fence!
I have to admit I can’t stand gardening – but five days a week I get muddy and dusty doing things with horses. Very good for the soul.
Roz, to each our own. Like you implied, do what feeds your soul. Working w/horses five days a week sounds cool!
When I had my own place in PA, I used to attempt to garden. I lived on top of a mountain with plenty of wildlife around so as you can imagine it was slim pickings come harvest time, but like writing it was always a learning experience. Plus I had to really use my creativity to figure out a way to grow things and outsmart the deer, rabbits, bears and groundhogs.
Alissa, did you really have bears in your garden? That sounds fascinating. You’d have to build a pretty strong fence to keep a bear out.
What a lovely garden! I’m smiling right now because I’ve just come in from the garden covered in dirt. The poor little plants look so sad and helpless when they first go in. I find myself running to the door and looking out the windows again and again to assure myself they’re OK …
Thanks,Portia. Sometimes our starts look pretty droopy when they are transplanted and takes them a day or two to stand up straight. I guess it is a shock to their systems.
I’ve had gardens and some were grand. There’s nothing like velvety lettuce and corn eaten just as it’s picked. But I don’t have a place to garden now and do miss it. To get my nature-ripe produce I go to a farmer’s market.
I love those pictures. There is something so satisfying about watching vegetables and fruits form and ripen.
I like the idea of viewing writing that way, too.
Thanks, Tricia. I’m glad you enjoyed the photos and the writing analogy. I’m trying to stretch myself with my writing. I’m working on a new book and am approaching it differently, a little more up front planning than I’ve done in the past.
Paul, your posts are always so intriguing–I just love the uniqueness of your life in Alaska. I can’t imagine such a short growing season, but it looks like you’ve worked to take advantage of it!
I love the way you’ve related this to our writing life. We truly do have to find out what works best for us, whether for our stories or our writing life.
Jody, I’m glad you are enjoying the posts. When I started this blog I wanted it to be a mix of life in Alaska and writing so I try to weave the two together. I think it helps me see things in new ways. This week I’m using one of your favorite books, Plot and Structure by James Scott Bell, as a tool for planning a new book! He’s giving me some fresh ways of looking at story creation.
I love the cabbage. Beautiful. And the raised beds.
I have one crazy cabbage from last year that was totally covered in snow for four months and is now growing again!
I moved a rose bush. You should see my arms. Looks like I wrestled a cat. The writing has been like that too. Until today. Very good day!
And your growing season is so interesting to me! I wonder how it effects your writing. Do you write at all when it is sunny all the time? I love watching all the new stuff come up, but I dread it a little bit too because my hibernating/writing time is over. Everything is frenetic here in the summer!
Tina, I still write in the summer but a little less because my wife is on break from her job so we try to do some kayaking and backpacking. The garden takes time as well but the daylight makes it easy to do gardening chores at night where it is dark in other places. It’s pretty common for me to be working in the garden at 10 pm.
I’m glad you had a good day writing. I’m brainstorming scene ideas for a new novel. Having a pretty good day as well.
Oh, gardening! I can’t wait! Your raised beds are so pretty.
Your garden/writing talk got me to thinking about how each year my garden surprises me, and each book I write does too.
Enjoy your garden this year!
Thanks, Jill. That’s one of the things I love about writing–the surprises. I think the possiblities are endless if we keep working at it.
Oh yes. These fingers that are clicking away on the keyboard usually have a lot of the garden tucked under their nails. My carrots, potatoes, lettuce and peas are up and looking pretty tempting. Of course, when the tomatoes set I’ll be writing next to those plants encouraging them. A lot of them never make it from the garden to the kitchen. Come July, you’re welcome to join me for a snack.
C. Lee, I love eating tomatoes fresh from the vine! You can count me in for that snack!
I can relate to the gardening analogy. I don’t garden anymore — my entire backyard is 15 x 25 feet. But I get my hands messy in writing all the time.
Elana, I say you’ve got to mess up a manuscript to make it better. My hands get messy, too.
I used to garden but not anymore. Maybe I’ll start up again…
K.M. I never imagined that I’d take up gardening until one summer when I agreed to take care of a friend’s garden, then I was hooked!
What a great garden! Love the pics.
Thanks, Diane!!
So many unique twists in here – the moose, the indoor tomatoes, the soil-warmers. Very interesting.
I love working in the vegetable garden with my 4-year-old. He gets so thrilled and he actually eats green food. It’s really a delight. This year we’re growing his Halloween pumpkin & he’s already excited.
Kirsten, growing Halloween pumkins–that sounds great. Some of my favorite garden memories are from when my nephew and two neices visited and helped us harvest. Like you said, it was a delight.
imagine that, growing vegetales in the snow…
Do you know a kid named Ed that makes movies?
Does a former astronaut named Maurice own most of the town.
Does a particularly literary ex con host a radio show up there?
WZ, You must know your Alaska history better than me b/c I have to answer no on all three counts.
I hate weeding! But I love revising. Even though they are similar.
My husband keeps trying to have a garden, but like you, we’d need the raised beds and so far he just starts too late in the season to get it done. Some day.