projects

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• Please follow parking guidelines at community garden during Blatchley Middle School construction

Passing along a note from Blatchley Community Garden manager Dave Nuetzel about parking during this summer’s construction project at Blatchley Middle School.

This is an important issue:

If you or any other gardener parks near the fence we all may lose the garden!!

The contractors for the school need to have full access to their area.  There are signs and BIG arrows pointing at the signs.  We MUST park on Oja Way, the side road next to the garden toward Petro Marine.

Please notify anyone parking there of the rules. If they ignore you call me, or contact Sitka Community Schools.

If there are any conflicts on this matter we will all lose our garden for the summer.

Dave Nuetzel
Blatchley Community Garden
Community.Garden@hotmail.com
738-8732

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• Let’s Grow Sitka garden education event is Sunday, March 11, at ANB Hall

Mark your calendars, because the 2012 “Let’s Grow Sitka” gardening education event opens at noon and runs until 3 p.m. on Sunday, March 11, at the Alaska Native Brotherhood Hall on Katlian Street. Don’t forget to set your clocks to spring forward so you can get ready to grow.

This annual event brings together local garden supply stores, local gardeners, landscapers and anybody who is interested in learning how to grow food and/or flowers. Sitka Local Foods Network Vice President Linda Wilson, who is coordinating the event with SLFN Board Member Cathy Lieser, was interviewed during the Morning Edition show Thursday on KCAW-Raven Radio and she provided more details about this event (click the link to listen to the interview), which helps Sitka residents get excited about the upcoming garden season.

There will be a wide variety of individuals and businesses with booths for the event, with some booths providing gardening information geared toward and others selling gardening supplies. Lunch will be available for purchase. Here is a tentative list of some of those planning to host booths:

  • Linda Wilson, Sitka Farmers Market, Grow a Row for the Market
  • Cathy Lieser, Let’s Grow Sitka, Sitka Local Foods Network
  • Doug Osborne. Sitka Local Foods Network?
  • Johanna Willingham, Pacific H.S./Sitka Farmers Market backup.
  • Jud Kirkness, Sicka Waste compost project, Fruit tree map
  • Tom Hart, compost, NZ composter ?
  • Kerry MacLane. Pest management
  • Lisa Sadleir-Hart. St. Peter’s Fellowship Farm
  • Laura Schmidt, St. Peter’s Fellowship Farm/Seed swap & share
  • Maybelle Filler, ???
  • Stanley Schoening, Chickens, fig trees, UAF Cooperative Extension Service
  • Judy Johnstone, High Tunnel program
  • David Lendrum, Guest speaker 3:15, info on new/unusual varieties for Southeast Alaska
  • Jeren Schmidt, Sitka Spruce Catering, lunch for purchase
  • Robert Gorman, UAF Cooperative Extension Service, history of Experimental Station
  • Andrianna Natsoulas, Food Sovereignty
  • Tracy Gagnon, Sitka 4H Club
  • Eve Grutter, Chickens, produce
  • Adam Chinalski, Model greenhouse
  • Penny Brown, Garden Ventures – products for sale
  • Amanda Grearson, True Value – products for sale
  • Lowell Frank, Spenard Building Supply Garden Center ??
  • Michelle Putz, Locally grown environmental benefits?
  • Rick Peterson, Gardening 101 – easiest to grow, need to amend soil, etc…
  • Lori Adams, Down-to-Earth U-Pick Garden – garden promotion and information
  • Mike Tackaberry/Robin Grewe, White’s Inc. – products for sale
  • Mandy Summers, Pacific High School
  • Kelly Smitherman, National Park Service – garden at Bishops House, etc…
  • Lisa Teas, Sitka Farmers Market art debut
  • Florence Welsh, Forget-Me-Not Gardens, local garden booklet, possible plant starts
  • Hope Merritt, Gimbal Botanicals herbal teas – info on wild herbs and herbs to grow

Right after the three-hour Let’s Grow Sitka event ends, guest speaker Dave Lendrum of Juneau will speak at 3:15 p.m. on “New Vegetable Varieties, Small Fruits, and Ornamentals for Southeast Alaska.” Lendrum is a landscape designer who just finished a two-year term as president of the Southeast Alaska Master Gardener Association and with his landscape architect wife, Margaret Tharp, owns Landscape Alaska.

Dave’s life has evolved in partnership with the natural world. He grew up in California on an organic u-pick vegetable farm, learning horticulture from his parents and the 4H club. He did nursery work and continued his post-college adventure in Ecuador by starting a fresh market produce business. After being a city horticulturist at the Eugene (Ore.) Parks Department, Dave started his first nursery, Western Oregon Perennials. A few years later, he found himself in a high-temperature photosynthesis lab at Stanford. In the Pacific Northwest, Dave restored old estate gardens. When he heard Alaska’s call, he moved north to Elfin Cove. Dave and his wife started Landscape Alaska in Juneau 28 years ago. They design and build landscapes on every scale and have won numerous awards both locally and nationally. In addition, Dave is the landscape superintendent for the University of Alaska Southeast and the Southeast representative on the statewide invasive species organization (SNIPM).

For more information about Let’s Grow Sitka, contact Linda Wilson at 747-3096 (evenings, weekends) or lawilson87@hotmail.com, or Cathy Lieser at 978-2572. The two event fliers for this event are posted below as Adobe Acrobat files (PDF files).

• Main flier for 2012 Let’s Grow Sitka event

• Flier for Dave Lendrum presentation after Let’s Grow Sitka event ends

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• Alaska Food Policy Council releases its 2012-15 strategic plan

The Alaska Food Policy Council recently released its 2012-15 Alaska Food Policy Strategic Plan, which was about a year in development.

This spring, the council will work on action-planning on its top five priority strategies:

  1. Develop, strengthen and expand the school-based programs and policies that educate about and provide healthy, local foods to schools (e.g., Farm to School Program, Agriculture in the Classroom, traditional foods in schools, school gardens).
  2. Strengthen enforcement language in the Local Agricultural and Fisheries Products Preference Statute (AS 36.15.050), also known as the “Seven Percent” statute and Procurement Preference for State Agricultural and Fisheries Products (Sec. 29.71.040).
  3. Advocate and participate in the development of community level and comprehensive statewide emergency food preparedness plan(s).
  4. Develop AFPC’s role as research aggregator and resource.
  5. Identify and support existing local food system leaders, projects, events, and activities that support Alaska’s food system.

“The Alaska Food Policy Council has been working toward this strategic plan since May 2010,” said Diane Peck, MPH, RD, a community and evaluation specialist with the Alaska Obesity Prevention and Control Program who leads the council. “Initial committees worked to identify Alaska’s food system issues and concerns and then the strategic planning group worked to turn those into our goals and strategies. It’s exciting to see such a broad spectrum of food system stakeholders come together to develop a clear and concise plan that will help guide local, regional and statewide food systems planning in Alaska.”

“The Alaska Food Policy Council works to strengthen Alaska’s food systems to spur local economic development, increase food security, and improve nutrition and health,” according to the council’s website. “The council serves as a resource for information on local and state food systems, and works to identify and propose policy and environmental changes that can improve the production, processing, distribution, health, security and safety of our food.”

According to the council’s website, “the long-term goals of the Alaska Food Policy Council are to identify barriers to building a viable Alaska food system, create a strategic plan to address these barriers, and make the necessary recommendations to decision makers to implement this plan. Diverse stakeholders from around the state have been invited to participate, including representatives for commercial farmers, farmers’ markets and CSAs; fisheries and fish processors; distributors; institutional purchasers; private-sector businesses; legislators; consumers; Alaska Native tribal organizations; food security organizations; environmental organizations; and local, state, and federal government agencies.

”

The Sitka Local Foods Network is represented on the Alaska Food Policy Council by Lisa Sadleir-Hart, MPH, RD, CHES, ACE, community nutrition department manager for SEARHC Health Promotion and the treasurer of the Sitka Local Foods Network.

“Being involved in the Alaska Food Policy Council has deepened my commitment to making local food a reality in Sitka,” Lisa said. “It’s also made me realize that we are already a community ‘on the map’ when it comes to food issues and creative responses. Sitka is considered to be one of the leading communities in the state, on par with Fairbanks/Ester/Delta Junction and Homer.”

The Alaska Food Policy Council will meet April 4-5 in Anchorage for a face-to-face meeting to action-plan the five priority strategies. People interested in providing feedback on the plan should contact Diane Peck at diane.peck@alaska.gov.

• 2012-15 Alaska Food Policy Council Strategic Plan

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• Sitka Local Foods Network hosts annual meeting and potluck dinner on Saturday, Jan. 21

Please join the Sitka Local Foods Network for its annual meeting and potluck dinner at 6 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 21, at the Sitka Unitarian Universalist Fellowship Hall (408 Marine St., parking lot is off Spruce Street).

Join us as we honor our four years of existence and prepare for our fifth year. During this time, the Sitka Local Foods Network has worked on several initiatives — creating the Sitka Farmers Market, building St. Peter’s Fellowship Farm, hosting the Let’s Grow Sitka! garden education event, and more. We supported projects to plant more fruit trees around Sitka, get more local fish served in school lunches and increase Sitka’s ability to compost, and we are working toward starting the Sitka Community Greenhouse and Education Center. We also received a 501(c)(3) non-profit status from the IRS, so people can make tax-deductible gifts to help fund our work.

Our annual meeting and potluck is open to the public, and all Sitka residents are welcome to attend. We will feature local and slow foods, but we really value your attendance. This is our opportunity to say thank you to those who have helped us grow, and it is your chance to learn more about what we’re doing and how you can help.

As we enter 2012, Sitka and the rest of Alaska face some serious food security issues. According to a recent survey by the University of Alaska Fairbanks Cooperative Extension Service, the weekly cost for food for a family of four in Sitka has gone up 44 percent over the past five years. With rising fuel prices, this trend does not figure to change in the near future. Sitka still imports about 90-95 percent of its food from the Lower 48 or other countries, which means transportation is a big part of our food cost. The Sitka Local Foods Network is looking for input from Sitka residents about how we can work to improve Sitka’s food security. We also are working with the Alaska Food Policy Council, which is a statewide organization working on food security issues.

So mark your calendar to attend our annual meeting and potluck dinner at 6 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 21, at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship Hall, 408 Marine St. For more information, contact Kerry MacLane at 752-0654.

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• Sitka Composting Project to meet on Monday, Jan. 9

Compost bins at Blatchley Community Garden

Compost bins at Blatchley Community Garden

The next meeting of the Sitka Composting Project (aka Sick-a Waste) will be at 7 p.m. on Monday, Jan. 9, at Harrigan Centennial Hall in the Pestchouroff Room.

This meeting will include an update on the project, which is one of this year’s three community health priority projects selected during the 2011 Sitka Health Summit. The agenda will include a discussion of recent meetings with the City and Borough of Sitka and the Sitka School District about improvements to the compost site at the Blatchley Community Garden behind Blatchley Middle School. The city and school district both have been supportive, so the next steps include submitting grants and further developing the project’s business plan.

For more information, contact Justin Overdevest at 747-7509.

• Draft of Sitka Compost Project business proposal (PDF file)

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• Time to mark your calendar for 2012 Sitka Local Foods Network major events

Each year, the Sitka Local Foods Network hosts a variety of events to promote the use of local foods in Sitka. Here are the dates and (if known) times for some of the events we will host in 2012.

The Sitka Local Foods Network annual meeting and potluck takes place at 6 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 21, at the Sitka Unitarian Universalist Fellowship Hall located at 408 Marine St. (the parking lot is off Spruce Street). For more details about this event, contact Kerry MacLane at 752-0654.

The Let’s Grow Sitka! gardening and local food production education event is from noon to 3 p.m. on Sunday, March 11, at the Alaska Native Brotherhood Hall (ANB Hall), 235 Katlian St. If you would like to be a vendor, do a demonstration or display, host an informational table, or participate in some other way, please contact Linda Wilson by phone 747-3096 (evenings/weekends) or via e-mail at lawilson87@hotmail.com.

The Sitka Farmers Markets this year will be from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. every other Saturday, from July 7 through Sept. 15, at ANB Hall, 235 Katlian St. The exact dates are July 7, July 21, Aug. 4, Aug. 18, Sept. 1 and Sept. 15.

While it’s not an official Sitka Local Foods Network event, we do support the Sitka Seafood Festival because it promotes the use of local seafood. This year’s Sitka Seafood Festival takes place on Friday and Saturday, Aug. 10-11, at Harrigan Centennial Hall and the Crescent Harbor shelter. For more information about this event, contact Alicia Olson at (928) 607-4845 or sitkaseafoodfestival@gmail.com.

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• Alaska chef Robert Kinneen creates webinar series about cooking with traditional foods

Local food from Sitka is featured prominently in the new Fresh49.com webisode series about using traditional foods created by Alaska chef Robert Kinneen of Anchorage and Dr. Gary Ferguson, ND, the director of the Wellness and Prevention program at the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium (ANTHC).

Guest chef Robert Kinneen of Anchorage demonstrates a dish using scallops during the first Sitka Seafood Festival in 2010.

Guest chef Robert Kinneen of Anchorage demonstrates a dish using scallops during the first Sitka Seafood Festival in 2010.

The first webisodes in the series are about the Store Outside Your Door, and they feature traditional foods Kinneen gathered around Sitka with Steve Johnson, a Tlingít elder-in-training from Sitka. Some of the webisodes featuring Sitka include a foraged salad, Alaskan fresh rolls, venison skewers and rockfish fumet. There is a Store Outside Your Door page on Facebook, as well as a channel on YouTubewhere people can find the webisodes.

Even though he currently lives and works in Anchorage, Kinneen is no stranger to Southeast Alaska. He is Tlingít and was born in Petersburg. Kinneen is a graduate of the Culinary School of America and has been a chef at several of Anchorage’s top restaurants over the years. He also has been a guest chef at the first two Sitka Seafood Festivals.

Dr. Ferguson, who is Aleut originally from Sand Point, is a Doctor of Naturopathy who earned his degree from the National College of Naturopathic Medicine. He has a special interest in diabetes treatment and prevention, which is one of the reasons Dr. Ferguson and Kinneen got together to do the series. Research has shown that traditional diets can play a big role in diabetes prevention.

In the first webisodes, they also worked with health educator Renae Mathson of Sitka (Tlingít), who works with the SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium (SEARHC) Diabetes and Health Promotion programs, and registered dietitian Desirée Simeon (Tlingít/Haida), who works with ANTHC. They currently are filming webisodes from other parts of Alaska, featuring traditional foods from those areas.

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• Sitka Local Foods Network says thanks to those who helped with September’s Running of the Boots

(NOTE: A version of this letter to the editor appeared in the Friday, Dec. 30, 2011, edition of the Daily Sitka Sentinel.)

The Sitka Local Foods Network would like to take this end-of-the-year opportunity to thank some of the folks who helped Sitka get more local food into the lives of our residents.

Helping us celebrate the end of the season at the Running of the Boots on Sept. 24 were a couple of hundred hardy Sitkans, as well as Jesuit Volunteers and AmeriCorps members who joined 2012 Health Summit awardee Laura Schmidt and Lynnda Strong in the early morning light to harvest produce for the Sitka Farmers Market table.

Sitka Conservation Society interns, Sitka Global Warming Group/Sustainable Sitka folks and Yellow Jersey Cycle Shop staff provided bike tune-ups and education to folks that took up the challenge to Bike to the Boots and participate in the international 350.org Moving Planet energy conservation day on Sept. 24, 2011.

The Sitka Blues Band was rockin’ the scene by the time the faithful sponsor’s (Honeywell International) XtraTuf boot was thrown in the air. Everyone got 10-percent off at Harry Race’s soda fountain and the first to reach the store got wooden tokens for free soda treats.  The fastest runner was Ben Sargeant, the host of the national cooking show Hook, Line and Dinner on the Cooking Channel that was filming the event for a February 2012 episode about Sitka. He won a new pair of XtraTufs from Russell’s.

Other wonderful sponsors included Harris Air, AC Lakeside, SeaMart, the Westmark, the Dock Shack, F/V Coral Lee, Gimbal Botanicals, Orion Sporting Goods, the Fur Gallery, Old Harbor Books, Salon 264, Rain Country, Sitka Sound Seafood and the Nugget Cafe.

Costume judges Kiki Norman, Jude Reis, and Sheila Finkenbinder excelled in hooking up the great runners and Lip Sync singers with the terrific prizes that were so bigheartedly donated.

Special thanks to the Daily Sitka Sentinel, KCAW, K11VG TV and KIFW for promoting our events all year long.  There are more people and businesses to thank, and I apologize if I have overlooked somebody. Thank you for a great year and here is to a bountiful 2012, including the March 11 “Let’s Grow Sitka!” spring fair.

Thank you,
Kerry MacLane, President
Sitka Local Foods Network, Inc.

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• Sitka Composting Project to meet on Monday, Nov. 7

Compost bins at Blatchley Community Garden

Compost bins at Blatchley Community Garden

The Sitka Composting Project workgroup will meet at 7 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 7, at Harrigan Centennial Hall (Maksoutoff Room).

This is the third meeting of the workgroup, which formed as part of a 2011 Sitka Health Summit health priority project. The goal is to create a community compost site and to promote more composting by individual families.

The attached document goes over a number of alternatives for site location and composting technology. The meeting will start with reporting on individual action items, then the workgroup will discuss location and composters. After that, the next steps are to create a business plan and research funding possibilities.

For more information, contact Sitka Conservation Society Community Sustainability Coordinator Justin Overdevest at 747-7509 or justin@sitkawild.org.

• Composting Proposal and Alternatives

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• Running of the Boots raises funds for Sitka Local Foods Network

It’s time to dig your XtraTufs out of the closet and gussy them up. The 17th annual Running of the Boots takes place at 11 a.m. on Saturday, Sept. 24, at the Crescent Harbor shelter. And this year people who “Bike to the Boots” can receive a free bike safety check before the race.

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 non-profit group 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.

Participants line up behind the Running of the Boots banner before the start of the race

Participants line up behind the Running of the Boots banner before the start of the race

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 course involves a run from Crescent Harbor to the corner of Katlian and Lincoln streets and back, with a short course for kids looping around St. Michael’s Cathedral. 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. There is a lip synch contest after the race, which costs $10 to enter. Local merchants have donated bushels of prizes for the costume and lip synch contests, including a new pair of XtraTufs. The Sitka Local Foods Network will host a Sitka Farmers Market booth with fresh veggies for sale. Grilled black cod and crépes also will be available.

The “Bike to the Boots” event was added this year as part of the national 350.org “Moving Planet: A Day to Move Beyond Fossil Fuels” event on Sept. 24 promoting community sustainability. A bike station will be set up at 10 a.m. at Crescent Harbor Shelter, and people can pump air into their tires, oil their chains, get a safety check, receive info about bicycle safety rules and more. There also will be booths about Sitka environmental issues, the importance of local food and how to reduce our use of fossil fuels.

Runners hit the trail during the 14th Annual Running of the Boots race on Sept. 27, 2008, in Sitka.

“This is a really fun way to advance the Sitka Farmers Market and our other Sitka Local Foods Network projects,” Sitka Local Foods Network Board President Kerry MacLane said. “The ‘Bike to the Boots’ event will add a fun new twist to the Running of the Boots, while helping remind people about how much fossil fuel is used to bring food to Sitka from thousands of miles away.”

To learn more about the Running of the Boots, contact Kerry MacLane at 752-0654 or by e-mail at maclanekerry@yahoo.com. Historical information about the race (through 2005) can be found online at http://www.runningoftheboots.org/, and info about the Sitka Local Foods Network and more recent Running of the Boots events (2008-10) is online at http://www.sitkalocalfoodsnetwork.org/.

• 2011 Running Of The Boots flier (feel free to print this PDF and hang copies around town)