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• Alaska Center for the Environment launches local food campaign

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The Alaska Center for the Environment is launching a new campaign to teach Alaskans about the importance of local food. This campaign is just getting going, and there’s a lot of work needed to flesh out all of the elements. But it’s good to see someone looking a local food security issues on a statewide level.

Click here to read the main information page about the campaign, which includes facts such as Alaskans spent $2.6 billion on food each year and in 2007 only 0.13 percent of that money went to agricultural products grown in Alaska. Click here to read the campaign’s Frequently Asked Questions page. Click here to read about a proposed “Alaska Food, Farms and Jobs Act” that is based on legislation out of Illinois that ACE hopes to find an Alaska legislator willing to introduce.

Finally, click here to read about the Alaska Local Food Film Festival that takes place Oct. 2-8 at the Bear Tooth Theatrepub and Grill in Anchorage. Each day during the festival the Bear Tooth will show a local food-related movie at 5:30 p.m. The films include “Food, Inc.,” “The Garden,” “Eating Alaska,” “Fresh” and “The End of the Line.” Sitka filmmaker Ellen Frankenstein will lead a discussion after her film, “Eating Alaska,” is shown on Sunday, Oct. 4.

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• Capital City Weekly features Sitka Farmers Market’s Table of the Day Award and other news about local foods

Screenshot of Capital City Weekly feature on Sitka Farmers Market Table of the Day Award winners

Screenshot of Capital City Weekly feature on Sitka Farmers Market Table of the Day Award winners

Click here to see a photo in this week’s Capital City Weekly highlighting Evening Star Grutter and Fabian Grutter of Eve’s Farm, who won the Table of the Day Award during the fourth Sitka Farmers Market of the summer on Aug. 29. Don’t forget the fifth and final Sitka Farmers Market of the summer takes place from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. this Saturday, Sept. 12, at Alaska Native Brotherhood Hall (235 Katlian St.). We look forward to seeing you there.

There also have been several other local foods stories in the news in Alaska in recent days.

Click here to read a Capital City Weekly article about the Autumn Festival on Saturday, Sept. 19, in Juneau. The Autumn Festival features some local food booths, in addition to the usual arts and crafts and the beer garden (part of the Autumn Pour homebrew competition) that make up the bulk of the show at the Juneau Arts and Culture Center.

Click here to listen to a newscast from KHNS-FM public radio in Haines that features a story about local efforts in Haines and Skagway to promote local foods during the Alaska Grown Eat Local Challenge on Aug. 23-29 (link opens an online MP3 audio file, story starts about halfway through the newscast). The story mentions that the last Haines Farmers Market of the season takes place from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 12 (click here for info).

Click here for an Anchorage Daily News article on what crops to expect at this weekend’s farmers markets in the Anchorage and Mat-Su valleys.

Click here to read an article from The Redoubt Reporter (an online news site from the Kenai Peninsula) about the annual honey extraction event hosted by the Eat Me Raw Honey Company in Kasilof (a community near Kenai and Soldotna). During this event, they clean honey out of the hives and processing it.

Click here to read an article from The Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman about Wasilla dentist Steve Hubacek and his two record-breaking cabbages at the Alaska State Fair in Palmer.

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• Local food news from Juneau: Virus infects Tlingít potato crop; Glory Hole to get community garden

(Photo courtesy of Klas Stolpe/Juneau Empire) Bill Ehlers, assistant gardener at the Jensen-Olson Arboretum in Juneau, holds a Tlingít potato next to some borage plant flowers.

(Photo courtesy of Klas Stolpe/Juneau Empire) Bill Ehlers, assistant gardener at the Jensen-Olson Arboretum in Juneau, holds a Tlingít potato next to some borage plant flowers.

Click here to read an article in Tuesday’s Juneau Empire about a virus that has infected the crop of Tlingít potatoes at Juneau’s Jensen-Olson Arboretum. According to the article, the potatoes still are safe to eat, despite the virus. But the virus means they won’t be used as seed potatoes for other community gardens in Southeast Alaska, as previously planned. Officials from the University of Fairbanks Cooperative Extension Service office in Juneau are doing what they can to remove the virus so they can guarantee clean seed, but it might take a few years.

Click here to read an article from Monday’s Juneau Empire about plans to build a community garden at the Glory Hole homeless shelter and soup kitchen in downtown Juneau. The community garden is expected to provide fresh vegetables and fruit for the soup kitchen, as well as giving Glory Hole patrons a project they can work on at the shelter. Plans are to put garden beds on the roof and terraced garden beds on the hill behind the Glory Hole’s back door.

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• Juneau Empire features Table of the Day Award winners from fourth Sitka Farmers Market

Screenshot of Sunday's Juneau Empire feature on the Sitka Farmers Market table of the day award

Screenshot of Sunday's Juneau Empire feature on the Sitka Farmers Market table of the day award

Click here to see where the Juneau Empire on Sunday, Sept. 6, featured Table of the day Award winners Evening Star Grutter and Fabian Grutter of Eve’s Farm from the fourth Sitka Farmers Market of the summer on Aug. 29. By the way, this photo also appeared in the Friday, Sept. 4, edition of the Daily Sitka Sentinel (but there’s no online link).

Don’t forget that our final Sitka Farmers Market of the summer takes place from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 12, at Alaska Native Brotherhood Hall (235 Katlian St.). We look forward to seeing you at the market.

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• Another record cabbage at the Alaska State Fair

Screenshot of the Anchorage Daily News article on Steve Hubacek's giant cabbage

Screenshot of the Anchorage Daily News article on Steve Hubacek's giant cabbage

Click here to read about a record-breaking 127-pound cabbage, called “The Beast,” Wasilla’s Steve Hubacek weighed in on Friday at the Alaska State Fair in Palmer. Click here to read the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner’s version of the story, which includes some other big veggie records set at the fair.

This record-breaking cabbage, which qualifies for both the state record and a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records, was weighed in just two days after Hubacek broke a 20-year-old record with a 125.9-pound cabbage. I hope he enjoys cole slaw and sauerkraut. Click here to see a list of Guinness Book of World Record-setting veggies at the Alaska State Fair since 1993 (opens PDF file).

Screenshot of the giant cabbage story in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner

Screenshot of the giant cabbage story in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner

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• UAS-Sitka Campus to host class on how to identify Southeast Alaska mushrooms

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The University of Alaska Southeast-Sitka Campus Community Education and Professional Development program will host Kitty LaBounty as she teaches the class “Southeast Mushrooms: How to identify them.” This two-day class takes place from 7-8:30 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 10, and from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 12, at the UAS-Sitka Campus (with field trips). The course fee is $49 and students should dress for the outdoors, bring waxed paper and a bucket for gathering.

This course is designed to introduce students to the mushroom flora of Southeast Alaska. The focus will be on the use of taxonomic keys for identification of fungi and recognition of both edible and poisonous mushrooms. Cooking and preservation of mushrooms will be discussed. Field trips are followed by in-class identification of collected mushrooms.

The class needs to have at least 10 students registered by Monday, Sept. 7 (note that Monday is a holiday, so you might want to register by Friday). The class is limited to 18 students. For more information, contact the UAS-Sitka Campus Community Education and Professional Development program at 747-7762. To register, call 747-6653. Click here to download the course brochure as a PDF file.

For mushroom lovers who can’t participate in the class, there is a free natural history presentation scheduled for 7 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 18, at the UAS-Sitka Campus called “Why Mushrooms Matter.” The talk features speaker Steve Trudell, affiliate professor in the College of Forest Resources and lecturer in the Biology Department at the University of Washington. He also is co-author of a new book, “Mushrooms of the Pacific Northwest.”

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• Alaskans love their giant vegetables and other stories in the news

This is the time of year when Alaska has two state fairs in progress — in Palmer and in Fairbanks — and it’s also the time of year when people bring out the record-setting vegetables they’ve grown. This year is no exception, and there are several stories in the news about huge veggies grown in Alaska.

Click here to read an Anchorage Daily News story about the record-setting 125.9-pound cabbage grown by Steve Hubacek of Wasilla. This cabbage not only broke the Alaska state record, but also qualified for entry in the Guinness Book of World Records.

Click here to see an Anchorage Daily News video of the great pumpkin weigh-off between Dale Marshall of Anchorage and current state record-holder J.D. Megchelsen of Nikiski. Marshall’s winning pumpkin weighed 594 pounds.

Click here to read an article from the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner about monster vegetables entered in the Alaska Feed Co. vegetable contest at the Tanana Valley State Fair in Fairbanks.

Click here to read Anchorage Daily News photographer Fran Durner’s “Talk Dirt To Me” blog entry about colorful Alaska State Fair flowers.

Click here to read an article about invasive weeds by Anchorage Daily News garden columnist Jeff Lowenfels.

Click here to see a Capital City Weekly photo package from the second annual Juneau Farmers Market and Local Food Festival held last Saturday. Click here to see a larger photo gallery posted on the Capital City Weekly online site.

Click here to read a letter to the editor in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner about Alaska’s bountiful harvest of berries this summer.

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• Evening Star Grutter wins Table of the Day Award from fourth Sitka Farmers Market

Fabian Grutter, left, and Evening Star Grutter, right, of Eve's Farm receive the Table of the Day Award from Linda Wilson during the fourth Sitka Farmers Market of the season on Aug. 29.

Fabian Grutter, left, and Evening Star Grutter, right, of Eve's Farm receive the Table of the Day Award from Linda Wilson during the fourth Sitka Farmers Market of the season on Aug. 29.

Evening Star Grutter and Fabian Grutter of Eve’s Farm won the “Table of the Day Award” for the fourth Sitka Farmers Market of the season on Aug. 29.

The Sitka Local Foods Network selected the table — which featured a variety of fresh produce and homemade jams and jellies — to receive the $25 cash prize, an Alaska Farmers Market Association tote bag and a certificate of appreciation. A similar prize package is awarded to a deserving vendor at each of the five Sitka Farmers Markets this summer.

The fifth and final market of the season takes place from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 12, at Alaska Native Brotherhood Hall. Keep your eye on this site for more information.

Also, a new photo gallery from the fourth Sitka Farmers Market on Aug. 29 has been posted on Shutterfly (an online photo-sharing site). Click this link to check out the photos.

Evening Star Grutter and a rack of her homemade jams and jellies

Evening Star Grutter and a rack of her homemade jams and jellies

Lexi Fish cooks up a crepe

Lexi Fish cooks up a crepe

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• Juneau hosts second annual Juneau Farmers Market and Local Food Festival and other news

The Juneau Commission on Sustainability hosted its second annual Juneau Farmers Market and Local Food Festival on Saturday, and the Juneau Empire had plenty of coverage of Juneau’s only farmers market of the summer. Click here to reach the main story about the farmers market in Sunday’s edition of the Juneau Empire. Click here to read an editorial praising the idea of a farmers market and sustainable food.

In addition to the farmers market stories, the Juneau Empire also ran a feature about a Juneau gardener who is using aeroponics to grow his food. Click here to read the story.

The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner on Sunday ran an article about the Fairbanks Community Cooperative Market, which is an effort to get 1,500 Fairbanks residents to buy $200 memberships in a new store that would emphasize local food and organic food choices (click here to read the story). So far the project has downpayments on about two-thirds of the memberships needed to launch the project.

Finally, this week’s Alaska Journal of Commerce has a feature story about alternative energy guru Bernie Karl, who uses geothermal energy to power 44 buildings over 450 acres at the Chena Hot Springs Resort, including the resort’s large greenhouses that can grow about 150,000 to 175,000 heads of lettuce a year and other crops. Click here to read more about the Chena Hot Springs Resort greenhouses and how they can be a good model for the Sitka Community Greenhouse project.