September 12, 2014 by Charles Bingham

• Sitka Local Foods Network looks to fill vacancies on its board of directors

The 2014-15 Sitka Local Foods Network Board of Directors. Front row, from left, Suzan Hess, Lisa Sadleir-Hart, and Maybelle Filler. Back row, from left, Beth Kindig, Lauren Fetzer, Michelle Putz, and Charles Bingham. Not pictured are Jack Ozment, Milt Fusselman, and Rick Armstrong.

Are you interested in promoting and encouraging the use of locally grown, harvested and produced foods in Sitka and Southeast Alaska? The Sitka Local Foods Network could use you on its board of directors.

The Sitka Local Foods Network currently has two vacancies on its nine-person board of directors, with the possibility of additional spots opening up in January.

Board members are concerned about increasing access to local food for all Sitka residents. They also are concerned about rising food prices in Sitka, and they want to advocate for more community and family gardens in Sitka.

Board members help direct the Sitka Local Foods Network, a non-profit that promotes the harvest and use of local food in Sitka. In addition to setting the focus of the group, board members also help on a wide variety of projects such as the Sitka Farmers Market, St. Peter’s Fellowship Farm, the Sitka Community Greenhouse and Education Center, and the Sitka Local Foods Network Education Committee. In addition, over the years our board members have supported community food-related projects such as the Blatchley Community Garden, Let’s Grow Sitka, the Sick-A-Waste compost project, the Sitka Community Food Assessment project, Sitka Fish-To-Schools, the Sitka fruit-tree-planting project, other school education projects and more.

To apply for a spot on the board, please fill out the attached application and submit it to sitkalocalfoodsnetwork@gmail.org. The Sitka Local Foods Network board is a working board, which means each board member also participates in one of our four focus groups (farmers market, fellowship farm, education committee, and greenhouse). For more information, contact Sitka Local Foods Network board president Lisa Sadleir-Hart at 747-5985.

Our current board members and the year their terms end are:

2014 — Milt Fusselman, Charles Bingham, one vacant seat
2015 — Lisa Sadleir-Hart, Michelle Putz, Maybelle Filler
2016 — Beth Kindig, Matthew Jackson, one vacant seat

We also are looking to increase our pool of volunteers who will help out during the various projects hosted by the network each year (no formal application needed, just send us your name/contact info and what types of projects you enjoy).

The next Sitka Local Foods Network board meeting is at 6:30 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 13, in the upstairs meeting room at the See House behind St. Peter’s By The Sea Episcopal Church. The board generally meets from 6:30-8:30 p.m. (with a brief finance committee meeting from 6-6:30 p.m.) on the second Monday of each month, except during the summer (June, July, August) when board members are busy working with the Sitka Farmers Market and St. Peter’s Fellowship Farm communal garden.

• Sitka Local Foods Network board of directors application

• Sitka Local Foods Network board of directors job description

August 31, 2014 by Charles Bingham

• Learn about where your Sitka Farmers Market produce is grown

When people stop at the Sitka Local Foods Network booth at the Sitka Farmers Market to buy produce a common question people ask is where is the food grown.

Most of the produce sold at the Sitka Local Foods Network booth is grown here in Sitka and comes from three main sources — the St. Peter’s Fellowship Farm communal garden (Laura Schmidt is lead gardener), some land in Pat Arvin’s Garden she donates to the Sitka Local Foods Network to grow potatoes and carrots, and Anam Cara Garden owned by Tom Hart and SLFN president Lisa Sadleir-Hart. We also receive donations from other family gardens in town with extra produce.

All of the funds raised selling produce at the Sitka Local Foods Network booth are used to support SLFN projects during the year. These include hosting the six Sitka Farmers Markets each summer, operating St. Peter’s Fellowship Farm, providing a variety of education opportunities about local foods and gardening in Sitka, and supporting other projects in town that promote local foods (such as the Sitka Community Food Assessment, Fish to Schools, Sitka Kitch, etc.).

Don’t forget the last Sitka Farmers Market of the summer is from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 6, at Alaska Native Brotherhood Founders Hall (235 Katlian St.). If you live near Sawmill Creek Apartments (9:45 a.m. pick-up), Indian River housing (9:50 a.m.), or the Swan Lake Senior Center (10 a.m.), we have free transportation to the market through a contract with Sitka Tours. The shuttle bus picks up at the times listed, and makes its return trip at noon from ANB Hall. We do plan a small produce table at the Running of the Boots on Saturday, Sept. 27, near St. Michael’s Russian Orthodox Cathedral.

August 28, 2014 by Charles Bingham

• 20th annual Running of the Boots costumed fun run raises funds for Sitka Local Foods Network

It’s time to dig your XtraTufs out of the closet and gussy them up. The 20th annual Running of the Boots begins at 10 a.m. on Saturday, Sept. 27, at the big tent near St. Michael of the Archangel Russian Orthodox Cathedral on Lincoln Street.

This will be the second year featuring a new meeting point and course, allowing the race to be a bigger part of the End-of-Season Celebration festivities hosted downtown by the Greater Sitka Chamber of Commerce and the Alaska Cruise Line Association.

“I’m excited about the Running of the Boots joining the End-of-Season folks under one big tent … literally,” race organizer Kerry MacLane said. “We’ll have music, hot chocolate, and folks can enjoy a complimentary lunch after oodles of prizes have been awarded.”

So what is the Running of the Boots? It’s Southeast Alaska’s answer to Spain’s “Running of the Bulls.” Sitkans wear zany costumes and XtraTufs — Southeast Alaska’s distinctive rubber boots (aka, Sitka Sneakers). The Running of the Boots raises funds for the Sitka Local Foods Network, a nonprofit organization that hosts the Sitka Farmers Market and advocates for community gardens, a community greenhouse, sustainable uses of traditional subsistence foods and education for Sitka gardeners.

The Running of the Boots is a short race for fun and not for speed, even though one of the many prize categories is for the fastest boots. Other prize categories include best-dressed boots, zaniest costume, best couple, best kids group and more. The new course starts by St. Michael’s Cathedral, and heads down Lincoln Street toward City Hall, takes a left on Harbor Drive and loops up Maksoutov Street and back to the starting line.

The entry fee for the Running of the Boots is $5 per person and $20 per family, and people can register for the race starting at 10 a.m. Costume judging starts about 10:30 a.m., and runners hit the streets at 11 a.m. As usual, local merchants have donated bushels of prizes for the costume contest. The Sitka Local Foods Network will host a Sitka Farmers Market booth with fresh veggies for sale. The booth takes debit cards, WIC vouchers and Quest cards.

“This is a really fun way to advance the Sitka Farmers Market and our other Sitka Local Foods Network projects,” MacLane said. “This is a must-see annual change-of-the season tradition in Sitka.”

To learn more about the Running of the Boots, contact Kerry MacLane at 752-0654 or 747-7888, or by email at maclanekerry@yahoo.com.

Historical information about the race (through 2005) can be found online at http://www.runningoftheboots.org/. Info about the Sitka Local Foods Network and more recent Running of the Boots events (2008-13) is online at http://www.sitkalocalfoodsnetwork.org/ (type Running of the Boots into the search bar at the top of the page). Click here to see a slideshow of scenes from last year’s event.

Also, don’t forget to like our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/SitkaLocalFoodsNetwork to stay updated on Sitka Local Foods Network activities.

August 27, 2014 by Charles Bingham

• Don’t forget Sunday’s the deadline to add Pick.Click.Give. donations to your PFD application

If you’re like most Alaskans you probably filed your 2014 Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend (PFD) application before the March deadline. But did you know you still can add Pick.Click.Give. donations to your 2014 application through Sunday, Aug. 31? If you haven’t already, please consider making a Pick.Click.Give. donation to the Sitka Local Foods Network.

Here’s how to add or change your Pick.Click.Give. donations. First, go to the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend application website, http://pfd.alaska.gov/, and find the green bar in the right column. Click the green bar, and follow the directions. You’ll need to enter your driver’s license number, Social Security number, and birthday to access your application, but once on the page you’ll be able to see your current Pick.Click.Give. donations (if any) and you can add or change them.

This is the first year the Sitka Local Foods Network is participating in the Pick.Click.Give. program, which allows people to donate in $25 increments to their favorite statewide and local 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations when they file their PFD applications. When you choose to donate part of your PFD to the Sitka Local Foods Network, you support the Sitka Farmers Market, St. Peter’s Fellowship Farm, Blatchley Community Gardens, education programs about growing and preserving food, the sustainable use of traditional foods, the Sitka Community Food Assessment, the Sitka Food Summit, and a variety of other projects designed to increase access to healthy local foods in Sitka.

You still can donate to the Sitka Local Foods Network if you aren’t from Alaska or aren’t eligible for a 2014 PFD. To donate, send your check to the Sitka Local Foods Network, 408 Marine St., Suite D, Sitka, Alaska, 99835. Our EIN is 26-4629930. Please let us know if you need a receipt for tax purposes. For more information about donating, you can send an email to sitkalocalfoodsnetwork@gmail.com.

Thank you to everybody making a Pick.Click.Give. donation to your Sitka Local Foods Network. We appreciate your support.

August 22, 2014 by Charles Bingham

• Meet your vendors: Erin Fulton of Alaskans Own Seafood and the Alaska Sustainable Fisheries Trust

(This is part of a new series of “Meet your vendors” articles, where Sitka Local Foods Network Intern McLane Ritzel is writing features about our regular Sitka Farmers Market vendors.)

Walking past the Alaskans Own Seafood booth at the farmers market, you may have noticed a kind and bright-eyed brunette with black-rimmed glasses selling extra frozen fish from the first community supported fishery (CSF) program in Alaska.

Alaskans Own Seafood is similar to a community supported agriculture organization, or “CSA program,” where on the last Wednesday of each month, they ship fish to participating individuals or families in Seattle, Wash., Juneau, Anchorage, and host a pick-up day for members from Sitka.

Erin is program coordinator of the Alaska Sustainable Fisheries Trust, but her job entails working with many fishery organizations around Sitka, including the Alaska Longline Fishermen’s Association (ALFA) and their Fishery Conservation Networks (FCN) which engage fishermen in both research and conservation initiatives. Alaskans Own Seafood is part of the Alaska Sustainable Fisheries Trust.

Sitka had always been at the back of her mind as her family took a cruise around Alaska 10 years ago. Despite the fact that they were only in town for one day, they kayaked Sitka Sound and determined it their favorite spot on the trip. Laughing, Fulton says, “I need space. I need more trees than people.”

Most of her family still lives in her hometown of Mahtomedi, Minn., a suburb of St. Paul. Her father is the president of a steel-casting firm and works with the mining industry, and her mother stayed home to raise her and her younger brother, Alex. Alex attended Duke University for graduate school and is now a mechanical engineer for Polaris Industries.

In 2009, Fulton graduated from St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minn., with two degrees in biology and environmental studies. When she wasn’t studying, she played the contra alto clarinet for the St. Olaf band (“a 90-member family”) when it went on 10-day tours around the United States. Concerned about the environmental effects of their carbon footprint while traveling around the country, Fulton began a carbon-offset initiative for local farmers.

After St. Olaf, Fulton attended graduate school at Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment and graduated with two master’s degrees in environmental management and forestry. According to Fulton, at Duke, there are 7,000 acres of timberland. Her master’s thesis involved getting carbon-offset, surveying the forest, and examining afforestation, reforestation, improved forest management, and avoided deforestation.

Having never worked in or pursued an education in the fisheries industry, Fulton took a job in Sitka as a Tongass Forest Resident with the Sitka Conservation Society. She was very interested in resource management in Alaska, because unlike the Lower 48 which is “locked in” with strict laws and regulations, Alaska is an active and dynamic place with constantly changing laws and continued resource extraction. Also, given her background in forest management, she is fascinated by the life cycle of salmon and its role as a “great fertilizer for the trees and forest.” She drove from her home in Minnesota to Alaska with a friend, through the Canadian Rockies and took a ferry to Sitka from Prince Rupert, British Columbia.

Here in Sitka, Fulton is a member of the local roller derby team Sitka Sound Slayers. Last year, she broke her leg twice, but is looking forward to getting back to the sport stronger than ever this season. And from 9-10 a.m. on Friday mornings, you can catch Erin on KCAW-Raven Radio’s Good Day Show.

Come meet Erin and check out Alaska’s Own at the next Sitka Farmers Market from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 23, at the Alaska Native Brotherhood Founders Hall (235 Katlian St.).

August 8, 2014 by Charles Bingham

• Meet your vendors: Lori Adams of Down-to-Earth U-Pick Garden

(This is part of a new series of “Meet your vendors” articles, where Sitka Local Foods Network Intern McLane Ritzel is writing features about our regular Sitka Farmers Market vendors.)

A couple of miles outside of town, up Sawmill Creek Road, there is a thriving garden with everything from fennel and radishes to kohlrabi and raspberries. Lori Adams operates the Down-to-Earth U-Pick Garden at 2103 Sawmill Creek Rd.

Adams grew up on a farm in Oregon and met her husband Dale in high school through the church community. The couple came to Sitka in 1986 and worked as commercial fishermen. They now have two sons, Ben, 24, and Levi, 18. Ben has a degree in biology and fisheries, and works at the Sitka Sound Science Center as a Chum Resource Coordinator. Levi is studying foreign languages at the University of Alaska Anchorage. The family lived on a boat for 11 years (as Adams says, “It’s a great way to start out here.”) and moved around before settling down on Sawmill Creek Road.

In 2009, Adams started Down-to-Earth U-Pick, shortly after the Sitka Local Foods Network started the Sitka Farmers Market. Adams credits Florence Welsh, the “matriarch of the Sitka gardening community,” for teaching her much of the gardening knowledge she knows today. They were neighbors on Halibut Point Road before Adams moved up Sawmill Creek Road with her family.

Adams had a serious passion for gardening from the beginning, but was frustrated that fruits and vegetables would come and go, and were not consumed. She wanted to share her produce with others. She contacted Wells Williams in the Sitka Planning Department with her idea and he responded, “You want to do WHAT?” Perplexed at first, Williams soon jumped onboard. He helped to rewrite the city bylaws so Adams would be able to start the U-Pick, and she was approved.

Although the garden requires a lot of upkeep, she loves it and spends hours every day tending to it. Dale, a hunting guide, often asks her, “Why can’t you just be a carrot lady?” And she answers that providing the community with diverse locally grown produce is her true passion. Adams likes to provide a variety of vegetables so that people can see what grows well in this climate. “There is always something someone can pick.” Sometimes one thing will get over-picked, but it’s never been a real problem. Her garden is so successful in part because she is particular in her composting. “I know what’s here, and I bring in the cleanest possible [additions].” She has a family of ducks on the property that help perform slug control and add fertilizer to the beds.

In operating the only registered U-Pick garden in Sitka, Adams has overcome many obstacles. Despite the fact that locals are positive towards her about what she’s doing, she says, “People who are really into local food aren’t my regular customers because they grow their own food, but they do support me.” She has some regulars to the garden, but often her clientele consists of families with kids who usually get their produce from the grocery store, but like to tour the garden. Adams tries her best to keep up with what the grocery stores are charging and seems to be doing a great job. “I’m not a making a living here, but it pays for itself.” Her fennel runs $4 each, peapods are $5 per plastic crate, and carrots are 20 cents each, no matter the size.

She encourages anyone and everyone to start a U-Pick and would love to help them with the venture. “It would be great if we could have U-Picks like this become more of a feasible option for the community [through having more people start them].”

In the future, Adams hopes to expand into all of her usable property, and either continue with her U-Pick garden or possibly transition to farming and supply for restaurants and other similar institutions.

You might have recently spotted Lori driving down the road in the newest addition to her family: a 1946 Chevy pickup with running gear from a 1991 Caprice. A few years back while in her late 40s, she decided that for her 50th birthday, she was going to buy herself an old truck. She has always loved them. “I grew up on a farm. I think it’s just part of the nostalgia.” Her and Dale drove all the way from Kentucky, where they bought the truck, to Seattle, to send it home on the barge.

When she’s not gardening or driving her sweet new ride, Adams likes to crochet and design patterns, scrapbook, and when traveling, watch the Food Network show “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives” with Guy Fieri, as there isn’t a television at home. One of her favorite go-to breakfast meals consists of a toasted bagel (she used cranberry-orange the other day) with real butter, garlic scape pesto, a fried egg, and locally smoked salmon. She loves garlic scapes. She puts them on everything — even into her vanilla smoothies!

Follow her two-week-long road trip journey with Dale from Kentucky to Seattle in her new vintage pickup, as well as her life at the U-Pick Garden on her blog at http://downtoearthupick.blogspot.com/. In addition, Adams sells copies of her book, “How to Grow Vegetables in Sitka, Alaska,” a collection of her 2012 Daily Sitka Sentinel “Gardening in Southeast Alaska” columns, for $20 each.

Come visit Lori and pick some produce from her beautiful garden Monday through Saturday between noon to 6:30 p.m. She will be at the next three Sitka Farmers Markets (Aug. 9, Aug. 23, and Sept. 6) with samples of her produce, but is also at the garden by 3 p.m. on those Saturdays. A few weeks ago, she came to the market with garlic scapes pulverized with olive oil and spread on a cracker. The combination was a HUGE hit. At the last market, she brought her Down-to-Earth peapods and homemade jams. Come visit her at the market this Saturday!

August 8, 2014 by Charles Bingham

• Meet your vendors: Kerry MacLane and his barbecued blackcod tips

(This is part of a new series of “Meet your vendors” articles, where Sitka Local Foods Network Intern McLane Ritzel is writing features about our regular Sitka Farmers Market vendors.)

On Saturday mornings at the Sitka Farmers Market, the smell of slightly singed, brown-sugar, soy-sauce blackcod tips fills the air. Wandering Sitkans are lured to 235 Katlian St. in search of the origin of this barbecued aroma. Outside of the Alaska Native Brotherhood Founders Hall, visitors to the Sitka Farmers Market can find a bearded man in overalls and a straw hat cooking freshly caught and deliciously marinated black cod tips.

Kerry MacLane is a familiar face in the food community here in Sitka and we’re thrilled to see him cooking up his black cod tips at each farmers market. After blackening the tips, he takes them fresh off the grill and lays them on brown or white rice. He offers shredded kale and soy sauce as condiments for the steaming hot bowl of pure goodness. It’s not uncommon for a line to accumulate at MacLane’s booth, because his blackcod tips are wildly popular.

MacLane is originally from Montana, where he worked as an organic farm inspector. Today his children (and now grandchildren!) still live in Missoula, but after going through a divorce, he decided to venture off to Alaska and fell in love with the state. He saw Alaska as Montana 30 years ago before large investors came in, such as Charles Schwab, who bought out his property there. In Tok, he first worked harvesting mushrooms. Throughout most of his life he has always been getting himself into trouble, being jailed time and again for civil disobedience. (Today on his property stands a sign that reads “WAR IS NOT THE ANSWER.”)

After Tok, he worked in Fairbanks as a teacher, and wrote a curriculum for a sustainable agriculture track. In 2007, he made his way down to Sitka, working as a deck hand. There, he was able to sample a lot of fish and gain knowledge of varying species and cleaning techniques.

“If you live long enough and are poor enough, you learn skills.” He decided to stay in Sitka and “reinvent himself,” as the “The Harbor Handyman” and was just that. Many people called for his help and he came to realize the need for reconstructive handy help on the island.

He lived on John Zarley’s Shamrock boat for the first years after his arrival in Sitka. Both Zarley and MacLane were born the same hour of the same day in the same year, though as MacLane says, “He’s a wealthy doctor and I have more hair.” The boat is a Monk design from 1940. Ed Monk was a famous shipwright and naval architect in the Pacific Northwest, who designed commercial and pleasure vessels, power or sail.

Within a year of his time in Sitka, MacLane became involved in the Sitka Health Summit during the program’s early years. He had worked in and helped build community gardens and grow local farmers markets in the past, but had never built his own community greenhouse. At the time, he was also working at SEARHC as a grant writer, and thanks to the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008, he was able to write $10 million in grants in his first year.

After the 2008 Sitka Health Summit, he helped form the Sitka Local Foods Network into a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, with the help of Linda Wilson (try her fabulous homemade rhubarb pie at the market) and other local food-interested individuals. MacLane served as the first president of the Sitka Local Foods Network.

He met his girlfriend, Sherie Mayo, a commercial fisherman working on her family’s boat called Coralee, here in Sitka and Kerry is able to operate his blackcod prepared food business with her help. He discovered the tasty benefits of blackcod tips nearly by chance. Mayo had always thrown out the tips under the blackcod gills until she met a few Russian women who taught her the importance of saving the decadent tips. As a result, MacLane’s blackcod recipe was featured on the Cooking Channel television show, “Hook, Line and Dinner,” where they contacted him to share his knowledge of cooking blackcod tips and other Sitkan delicacies. (Note, blackcod is not a true cod, and also is known as sablefish or butterfish for its high oil content.)

Together, Mayo and MacLane are buying a beautiful boat called the Blue Merlin, so named for its exterior blue tinge, and the infamous story of fisherman Ward Eldridge’s boat Merlin from 1999. On July 7 of that year, the Merlin sunk in Whale Bay after a whale poked its head through the hull. Before Mayo and MacLane started dating, MacLane hired Eldridge to take his son, daughter and himself to Goddard Hot Springs. MacLane remembers that trip as “magical,” and says that he himself is “turning into the little old man that Ward is now… [And] it is a pretty good place to age into.” According to MacLane, the Blue Merlin, Ward, Mayo and Kerry are like family now.

Someday, MacLane wants to learn to sail his boat to Hawai’i.

This coming Saturday, Aug. 9, come out to the Sitka Farmers Market and taste Kerry MacLane’s locally harvested and barbecued blackcod tips!

July 25, 2014 by Charles Bingham

• Volunteer harvesters needed at St. Peter’s Fellowship Farm

Your Sitka Local Foods Network needs a few volunteer harvesters to help pick the veggies at the St. Peter’s Fellowship Farm on Friday afternoons and occasional Saturday mornings.

We need veggie pickers from 3:30-5:30 p.m. every Friday throughout the summer to help harvest for the Sitka Farmers Market or our booth at Chelan Produce on non-market weeks. Volunteer harvesters also are needed from 8-9:30 a.m. on the Saturdays when we host the Sitka Farmers Market.

St. Peter’s Fellowship Farm is a communal garden located behind St. Peter’s By The Sea Episcopal Church on Lincoln Street (above Crescent Harbor). The communal garden grows produce sold at the Sitka Farmers Markets (held from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on alternate Saturdays — July 26, Aug. 9, Aug. 23, and Sept. 6 — at the Alaska Native Brotherhood Hall (235 Katlian St.). On non-market weekends, we host a booth with locally grown produce when the folks from Chelan Produce are in town across from AC Lakeside.

In addition, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on the Mondays the week of a Sitka Farmers Market (July 21, Aug. 4, Aug. 18, and Sept. 1) people who use WIC coupons can purchase produce from St. Peter’s Fellowship Farm. We will sell produce to anybody on those Mondays, but we are not set up to take SNAP (food stamp) EBT payments and so those without WIC coupons need to pay cash.

Volunteer harvesters usually can get small amounts of produce for their family when they help at the garden. For more information, please contact St. Peter’s Fellowship Farm Lead Gardener Laura Schmidt at 738-7009. Volunteer harvesters should call Laura ahead of time to let her know you’re coming. Your help is greatly appreciated.

July 18, 2014 by Charles Bingham

• Sitka Local Foods Network, other groups make free dirt available for Sitka gardens

Free dirt is now available to the people of Sitka for their gardening needs. On a trial basis, your Sitka Local Foods Network (SLFN) worked with and formalized an agreement with the City and Borough of Sitka, Sitka School District, and the Blatchley Community Gardens to provide free dirt to individuals, families, and non-commercial entities for developing fruit, vegetable, and flower gardens and beds.

The free community dirt pile is located at Blatchley Community Gardens, behind Blatchley Middle School. The pile is to the right (north) of the community garden and only dirt between the signs should be removed. People can remove dirt at any time, though avoiding school hours when school is in session is preferred.

“This is raw dirt, mostly from land development in forest and muskeg lots around Sitka. It is NOT top soil, but it is a good starting point for gardens when mixed with locally purchased lime and sand, and locally purchased or produced compost, manure, and other organic materials,” said Michelle Putz, SLFN vice-president. The Sitka Local Foods Network asks that gardeners not remove sand, rocks, live kelp or live creatures from local beaches to build their soil.

People taking dirt should bring their own shovels and containers for dirt. To make sure there is enough for everyone, SLFN asks Sitkans to take as much as you need but please do not use it for commercial use or developing a lot. People who are coming for dirt need to respect the gardens, gardeners, compost, equipment and other materials at the site by only taking dirt from the pile and not removing or using anything else at the site.

“One of the most asked questions SLFN gets is ‘where can I get dirt to start a garden?’ We recognize that dirt is scarce in Sitka, and we wanted to try to do something about it,” Putz said. “Making soil, the starting point of all gardens, more available to people really helps us to meet our mission of increasing the amount of locally produced and harvested food in the diets of Southeast Alaskans. We hope that people will take all the dirt they need to build new and larger vegetable, fruit, and flower beds, planters and gardens.”

Local contractors, like Troy’s Excavating are providing the dirt. If this trial goes well, the Sitka Local Foods Network hopes to continue to provide free dirt. Compost will not be given away or created at this time.

Those with questions or wishing to help volunteer on this or other SLFN projects should call Michelle Putz at 747-2708. (Editor’s note, click this link to listen to an Aug. 5 story about the community dirt pile from KCAW-Raven Radio.)

June 20, 2014 by Charles Bingham

• It’s time to … get the veggies at St. Peter’s Fellowship Farm ready for the first Sitka Farmers Market

Your Sitka Local Foods Network will host a garden party from 2-4 p.m. on Saturday, June 21, at the St. Peter’s Fellowship Farm communal garden (located behind St. Peter’s By The Sea Episcopal Church on Lincoln Street) to get the veggies ready in preparation for the first Sitka Farmers Market of the season.

Produce grown at St. Peter’s Fellowship Farm is sold during the Sitka Farmers Markets to help fund Sitka Local Foods Network projects throughout the year. Some of the produce also is sold to people using SNAP benefits (food stamps) and to local schools for their lunch programs. The first Sitka Farmers Market of the season is from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday, June 28, at Alaska Native Brotherhood Founders Hall (235 Katlian St.). The remaining Sitka Farmers Markets are on July 12, July 26, Aug. 9, Aug. 23, and Sept. 6.

In addition to planting and weeding, there may be other garden chores to do. During these garden parties we usually need people to shovel dirt and sift soil, weed, mulch and spread fertilizer (seaweed) on the existing garden beds. Most garden tools will be provided, but we may need people to bring shovels and pick-axes if they have them. These garden parties are a great place for Sitka residents new to gardening to get some hands-on instruction on how to plant their own veggie garden. The garden parties are kid-friendly, and we encourage volunteers to bring their children so they can learn where their food comes from. Volunteers can receive a share of the veggies for their work at the garden.

For more information, contact St. Peter’s Fellowship Farm lead gardener Laura Schmidt at 623-7003 or 738-7009, or contact Lisa Sadleir-Hart at 747-5985.