Author: Charles Bingham

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• Sitka Seafood Festival raffle tickets on sale now

Tickets are on sale now for the Sitka Seafood Festival‘s fundraising raffle, which takes place at noon on Sunday, May 9, at the New Bayview Restaurant and Wine Bar.

Raffle tickets were distributed to steering committee members, who will sell them for $5 each. The tickets also will be on sale from noon to 2 p.m. on Sunday, May 2, and from noon to 2 p.m. on Saturday, May 8, at SeaMart. Tickets also can be purchased at Old Harbor Books, Common Grounds (the coffee stand at SeaMart) and Sweet Pea’s Secondhand Boutique (1321 Sawmill Creek, Suite J).

The prizes include a Specialized Hardrock Sport Disc mountain bike worth $550 from Yellow Jersey Cycle Shop, $125 worth of king salmon from F/V Cloud Nine (Betsy and Moe Johnson) and 11 “Taste of Sitka” prizes of restaurant gift certificates with a variety of price values that will be awarded individually.

For more information about the raffle or to purchase tickets, contact Linda Olson at 747-6985.

The inaugural Sitka Seafood Festival is scheduled for Friday and Saturday, Aug. 6-7. Details still are being arranged, but the event will feature a formal catered dinner by a guest chef on Friday night and a full day of events on Saturday. Guest performers included the bluegrass band Trampled By Turtles and the four-man juggling, acrobatic, martial arts and comedy troupe “NANDA: Acrobaticalist Ninja Action Heroes.”

To learn more about the Sitka Seafood Festival or to volunteer to help on one of the committees, e-mail sitkaseafoodfestival@gmail.com. You also can contact Alicia Peavey at alaska_al33@hotmail.com or 1-928-607-4845. The Sitka Seafood Festival steering committee will meet at 7 p.m. on Thursday, May 6, at the Sitka Fire Station.

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• Endless Summer Ecological Garden and Landscape is a new service for Sitka gardeners

Tracy Sylvester (left) and Jesse Remund staff the Endless Summer Ecological Garden and Landscape information booth at Let's Grow Sitka on March 14, 2010

Tracy Sylvester (left) and Jesse Remund staff the Endless Summer Ecological Garden and Landscape information booth at Let's Grow Sitka on March 14, 2010

Jesse Remund and Tracy Sylvester are offering a new service to Sitka with their Endless Summer Ecological Garden and Landscape company.

Jesse and Tracy say they can help Sitka gardeners take local food to a new level. They will help local gardeners grow vegetables, herbs and medicinal plants by providing expertise and grunt labor. They introduced their new service at the “Let’s Grow Sitka!” garden show event on March 14 at Alaska Native Brotherhood Hall.

The pair will help Sitka residents with garden and landscape planning, planting, growing and maintenance, and harvesting. They believe, “A smart landscape is not only beautiful, it conserves water and energy, creates habitat for birds and other living organisms, filters pollution, combats global warming and can even provide tasty food for your plate!”

To learn more about their service, call 738-5377 or e-mail EndlessSummerEcological@gmail.com. Rates will depend on the job. Their main focus is on vegetable gardens.

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• Sam Benowitz to give free presentation about growing fruit in Sitka

A cluster of Parkland apples (photo from the Alaska Pioneer Fruit Growers Association gallery, http://www.apfga.org/)

A cluster of Parkland apples (photo from the Alaska Pioneer Fruit Growers Association gallery, http://www.apfga.org/)

Sam Benowitz of RainTree Nursery in Morton, Wash., will be in Sitka to give a free presentation about how to grow fruit in Southeast Alaska.

The presentation will take place at 7 p.m. on Monday, May 24, at Harrigan Centennial Hall. His Sitka presentation will be about about selecting, growing, and maintaining fruit trees, berry bushes and other edible landscape features.

Benowitz is the founder of RainTree Nursery, and he frequently gives presentations in Washington and Alaska about how to grow fruit trees. In Sitka, it’s possible to grow several varieties of apples and a couple of types of cherries. For more information, check out the Alaska Pioneer Fruit Growers Association site. There also are a multitude of berries that grow around Sitka, including many wild varieties and cultivated types such as raspberries and tayberries.

For more information, contact Jud Kirkness at 738-3254 or by e-mail at judkirkness@yahoo.com.

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• Planning underway for this summer’s Sitka Farmers Markets

It’s spring again and time to start planning for our third year of Sitka Farmers Markets. This year, the markets are scheduled for 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on alternate Saturdays, July 17 and 31, Aug. 14 and 28, and Sept. 11, at the Alaska Native Brotherhood Hall.

We really, really, need more locally grown produce vendors, home bakers, prepared food vendors and volunteers this year. If you know of someone who can help, please let us know. If you have extra locally grown produce but don’t have the time to staff a booth, you can donate it or sell it to the Sitka Farmers Market for resale at the Sitka Farmers Market booth. Proceeds from the produce sold at the Sitka Farmers Market booth goes toward Sitka Local Foods Network projects.

This year we had to raise the vendor fee for a table to $15 to cover costs of renting the ANB Hall and kitchen, hiring musicians and other expenses. There is an option to get your vendor space free if you help out with set-up and clean-up.

The registration form and market rules are linked below as PDF files. If you have any questions, please contact Linda Wilson at 747-3096 (nights and weekends only) or by e-mail at lawilson87@hotmail.com.

2010 Sitka Farmers Market vendor rules

2010 Sitka Farmers Market food rules

2010 Sitka Farmers Market vendor registration form

2010 Sitka Farmers Market schedule

2010 Sitka Farmers Market schedule

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• Sitka Local Foods Network selling seeds from Bountiful Gardens as fundraiser

Screenshot of Bountiful Gardens website

Screenshot of Bountiful Gardens website

Help support the Sitka Local Foods Network by purchasing organic seed varieties from Bountiful Gardens seed company that have been specially selected for our challenging climate by longtime Sitka gardener Jamie Chevalier.

There will be a serve-yourself seed rack at Old Harbor Books, with an honor-system donation jar for making change next to the seeds.

Among the seed varieties available will be cabbage, broccoli, beets, carrots, a variety of greens mixes, kale, lettuces, peas, radishes and summer squash. Seed supplies are limited for first come, first served.

Bountiful Gardens is an educational nonprofit organization that specializes in heirloom, untreated and open-pollinated varieties of seeds for sustainable agriculture. Bountiful Gardens also promotes the GROW BIOINTENSIVE sustainable mini-farming concept, which helps gardeners make small plots of land productive sources for agriculture.

For more information, contact Kerry MacLane at 752-0654.

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• Volunteers prepare St. Peter’s Fellowship Farm garden beds for planting, next work party is May 1

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Several volunteers helped out at a work party on Saturday afternoon, April 17, to get the St. Peter’s Fellowship Farm communal garden ready for planting next month.

The volunteers pulled weeds, mixed kelp and compost into the soil, built a couple of new garden beds, painted some new planters, transplanted some strawberries, cleaned out the storage shed and performed a lot of the tasks needed to get a garden ready for planting. In addition to the slideshow above, click here and scroll down for a similar slideshow on our Shutterfly site.

The next work party takes place from 2-4 p.m. on Saturday, May 1. St. Peter’s Fellowship Farm is located behind the See House behind St. Peter’s By The Sea Episcopal Church on Lincoln Street. Tools and gloves will be provided.

Food grown at the St. Peter’s Fellowship Farm communal garden is sold at the Sitka Farmers Markets, which start on July 17. For more information about the May 1 work party, contact Doug Osborne at 747-3752 or doug_las@att.net, or contact Lisa Sadleir-Hart at 747-5985 or 3akharts@acsalaska.net.

Planting parties at St. Peter’s Fellowship Farm take place from 2-4 p.m. on three straight Saturdays in mid-May — May 15, 22 and 29 — safely after the last frost of the spring. For more information on the planting parties, contact Lisa Sadleir-Hart at 747-5985 or 3akharts@acsalaska.net.

Also, a work party is scheduled for 12:30-3 p.m. on Saturday, April 24, at Seaview Gardens, a garden at 3509 Halibut Point Road owned by Sitka Local Foods Network secretary/treasurer Linda Wilson that also provides produce sold at the Sitka Farmers Markets. This work party will start off with homemade pizza, then volunteers will help Linda prepare new garden beds for planting so we have more produce to sell at the Sitka Farmers Markets. For more information on this work party, contact Linda at 747-3096 (evenings and weekends only) or send her an e-mail at lawilson87@hotmail.com.

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• Sitka Global Warming Group, Sitka Local Foods Network offer Sitka garden-matching program

Michelle Putz of the Sitka Global Warming Group staffs the garden match booth at the Let's Grow Sitka event on March 14, 2010

Michelle Putz of the Sitka Global Warming Group staffs the garden match booth at the Let's Grow Sitka event on March 14, 2010

Do you have a planting bed that you don’t have the time or energy to cultivate? Do you wish you could grow some vegetables, but have no place to put them?

Sitka Global Warming Group (SGWG), in conjunction with the Sitka Local Foods Network, is offering a garden-matching program to help people who have garden space get matched up with people who want to plant and tend a garden. This is an effort to increase the amount of food grown and eaten locally. SGWG asks Sitka residents who have garden space to share or residents who need a garden space to contact the group at info@sitkaglobalwarming.org. Provide your name, email address, phone number, size of the spot available or wanted, and the location of either the spot that is available or the address of the person who wants the spot.

So far the garden match program has paired up a couple of gardeners with garden beds, and helped get a few more people gardening at the homes of their friends and families. But the garden match program needs more garden spaces and gardeners. Michelle Putz of SGWG said they need more garden spaces along Halibut Point Road (where they have several available gardeners) and they need more gardeners along Sawmill Creek Road (where they have several available garden spaces).

“Can you (or someone you know) spare a little bit of garden or yard space that could be shared, especially on HPR?” Michelle asked in a recent e-mail. “Do you or someone you know long to get some veggie seeds in, but have nowhere to do it? Please call me ASAP at 747-2708. Would you like to help match people? Call if you’d like to volunteer.”

Michelle said the group is not setting any expectations of either the people who offer garden space or who want a garden space. Sharing of produce will be encouraged, but won’t be an expectation. SGWG also does not know how many participants to expect.

“This is the first year that we will do this,” Michelle said. “We’ve seen plenty of people who want to grow their own food but don’t have space to do it, and we have seen a lot of planting beds and garden spots that go unused during the summer because people are too busy or lack knowledge or experience in growing a garden. This is a great way to match those unused gardens with someone who will make them productive and increase the amount of vegetables being grown in Sitka.”

“Growing food locally has many benefits,” Michelle added. “For our group, the benefit is reducing the miles that food is shipped [thus reducing fuel use and carbon dioxide emissions]. But growing food locally also makes the food cheaper and improves the quality and healthfulness of the vegetables, since they are fresher. Growing food locally also improves our ‘food security,’ making a food shortage less likely in times of high fuel prices or bad weather. And local food tastes really good.”

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• Sitka Seafood Festival steering committee to meet on Thursday, May 6

The next meeting of the Sitka Seafood Festival steering committee takes place at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, May 6, at Harrigan Centennial Hall (Editor’s note: The meeting has been changed to 7 p.m. on Thursday, May 6, at the Sitka Fire Station). Six smaller committees are supposed to hold meetings before the steering committee meets again.

During the April 17 steering committee meeting, the discussion included an update on the group’s fundraising raffle that takes place at noon on Sunday, May 9, at the Bayview Restaurant. Raffle tickets were distributed to committee members, who will sell them for $5 each. The tickets also will be available at several locations that will be announced later this week. The prizes include a Specialized Hardrock Sport Disc mountain bike worth $550 from Yellow Jersey Cycle Shop, $125 worth of king salmon from F/V Cloud Nine (Betsy and Moe Johnson) and 11 “Taste of Sitka” prizes of restaurant gift certificates with a variety of price values that will be awarded individually. For more raffle info or to purchase tickets, contact Linda Olson at 747-6985.

The steering committee also discussed the need to visit more businesses for donations or sponsorships. Committee members are trying to get the donations/sponsorships confirmed by May 9 so the businesses can be acknowledged in Sitka Seafood Festival promotions leading up to the festival. Donations will be accepted after the May 9 deadline, but they may not receive as much recognition. There are several tiers based on the level of the donation/sponsorship. Donation/sponsorship checks need to be written to the “Sitka Conservation Society” with a memo of “Sitka Seafood Festival” or “SCS/SSF” (the Sitka Conservation Society is letting the festival share the society’s 501(c)(3) non-profit permit until the festival can get its own permit).

Committee members also discussed the tentative schedule, which includes on Friday, Aug. 6, a formal opening banquet dinner with a guest chef and live music following the dinner. On Saturday, Aug. 7, the tentative schedule includes a parade, vendors (including food and a beer garden), educational booths, entertainment booths, a stage with live acts (bands, cooking demonstrations, NANDA, etc.), a variety of contests for the kids, a “Taste of Sitka” with local chefs, and the headliner band and dance at night.

So far, the committee has booked “NANDA: Acrobaticalist Ninja Action Heroes,” a four-man juggling, acrobatic, martial arts and comedy troupe (see clip below). The committee hopes to confirm a headline music act and guest chef in the near future.

To learn more about the Sitka Seafood Festival or to volunteer to help on one of the committees, e-mail sitkaseafoodfestival@gmail.com. You also can contact Alicia Peavey at alaska_al33@hotmail.com or 1-928-607-4845. The Sitka Seafood Festival also has a new website under development, and eventually updates will be posted on the site.

Tentative schedule for the 2010 Sitka Seafood Festival (Aug. 6-7)

Sitka Seafood Festival business donation assignments (who asks) (updated)

Advertising Committee and tasks

Beverage Committee and tasks

Culinary Committee and tasks

Education Committee and tasks

Entertainment Committee and tasks

Fundraising Committee and tasks

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• Work parties scheduled for St. Peter’s Fellowship Farm

St. Peter's Fellowship Farm sign

St. Peter's Fellowship Farm sign

Two work parties are scheduled to prepare the St. Peter’s Fellowship Farm for planting later this spring. The work parties are from 1-3 p.m. this Saturday, April 17, and again from 2-4 p.m. on Saturday, May 1. St. Peter’s Fellowship Farm is located behind the See House behind St. Peter’s By The Sea Episcopal Church on Lincoln Street.

These work parties will focus on preparing the soil and getting the raised beds ready for spring planting. Tools and gloves will be provided. Food grown at the St. Peter’s Fellowship Farm communal garden is sold at the Sitka Farmers Markets, which start on July 17. For more information, contact Doug Osborne at 747-3752.

Planting parties at St. Peter’s Fellowship Farm take place from 2-4 p.m. on three straight Saturdays in mid-May — May 15, 22 and 29 — after the last frost. For more information on the planting parties, contact Lisa Sadleir-Hart at 747-5985 or 3akharts@acsalaska.net.

Also, a work party is scheduled for 12:30-3 p.m. on Saturday, April 24, at Seaview Gardens, a garden at 3509 Halibut Point Road owned by Sitka Local Foods Network secretary/treasurer Linda Wilson that also provides produce sold at the Sitka Farmers Markets. This work party will start off with homemade pizza, then volunteers will help Linda prepare new garden beds for planting so we have more produce to sell at the Sitka Farmers Markets. For more information on this work party, contact Linda at 747-3096 (evenings and weekends only) or send her an e-mail at lawilson87@hotmail.com.

Barren garden beds wait to be prepared for planting at St. Peter's Fellowship Farm

Barren garden beds wait to be prepared for planting at St. Peter's Fellowship Farm

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• The new Sitka Local Foods Network e-newsletter (April 13)

Click here to read the current Sitka Local Foods Network e-newsletter courtesy of Linda Wilson. Don’t forget, you can sign up for the e-newsletter by typing your e-mail address in the “Join Our Mailing List” box on bottom of the left side of the page.

This issue of the e-newsletter includes information about April being National Garden Month, about local garden work parties for gardens that help supply the Sitka Farmers Market with vegetables, growing apple trees in Sitka and growing rhubarb.