October 5, 2015 by Charles Bingham

• It’s time to … harvest and store your potatoes, and to plant garlic

Your Sitka Local Foods Network reminds you that it’s time to get out in the garden and harvest and store your potatoes.

The Sitka Local Foods Network education committee encourages people to come and get their hands dirty as you learn how to harvest potatoes. Participants will also learn what they need to do to keep those potatoes fresh and ready to eat from now until May.

Michelle Putz will present three short hands-on potato harvesting and storage workshops at 9 a.m. on Thursday, Oct. 8, at 4 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 15, and at 4 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 25, all at her home at 131 Shelikof Way. The classes are free and open to everyone.

In addition, she will lead a short class on planting garlic at 3 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 25, just before her third potato-harvesting class. Garlic is best planted in the fall.

The Sitka Local Foods Network education committee has been hosting a series of “It’s time to …” workshops this year designed to help local residents learn about various aspects of vegetable gardening and fruit growing. Many of these classes will be informal get-togethers at various gardens around town. Please watch our website, Facebook page, Facebook group, and local news media for information about upcoming classes. If you have an “It’s time to …” workshop you’d like to teach, contact Michelle Putz at 747-2708.

September 20, 2015 by Charles Bingham

• Final classes set for 2015 Sitka Local Foods Network garden mentor program

Tammy O’Neill shows off her garden from the Sitka Local Foods Network’s garden mentoring program. After growing in just one garden bed last year, she added new garden beds this year for her second year of the program.

Tammy O’Neill with her first carrot.

The 2015 gardening season is coming to a close, and the Sitka Local Foods Network garden mentor program is scheduling its final classes of the season to teach novice gardeners how to harvest their produce and winterize their gardens so they are ready for next spring.

So far classes have been set for four of our six garden mentor program students, with the other two TBA. Our four first-year students (A.J. Bastian, Rebecca Kubacki, Breezy and Josephine Dasalla) have been growing lettuce, kale, potatoes and rhubarb, four crops that grow well here in Sitka without a lot of fuss. Our two second-year students (Tammy O’Neill and Anna Bradley) have grown carrots, chard, green onions and peas, four crops that can grow well in Sitka but need a bit more loving care.

In addition to having experienced gardeners mentor them, all six students agreed to allow the classes taught at their garden plots be open to the public. The classes scheduled so far are:

A.J. Bastian, 207 Brady St. — noon, Wednesday, Sept. 23.
Rebecca Kubacki, 1202 Halibut Point Rd. — noon, Tuesday, Sept. 29.
Anna Bradley, 4764 Halibut Point Road, 1 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 29.
Tammy O’Neill, 2309 Merganser Drive, 1 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 8.

Rebecca Kubacki and her family with their garden.

Our two second-year students had never gardened for food before they started the program. They said they learned a lot and recommend the program to other new gardeners.

“I have so much more confidence and appreciate all the hands-on (help) I received,” O’Neill said, adding that her garden helped her save a lot of money on vegetables. “I don’t think I would have done it without the help and encouragement I had. I now have a network of people I can call to help with any questions or concerns I may have. I love eating local, fresh organic produce.”

After having a successful growing season last year, our returning students and a couple of the new ones had some soil problems this year. The gardens grew well in May and June, but in mid-July the plants seemed to stop growing even though the plants were well-formed. After some soil tests, it was discovered that some of the purchased compost was lower in nutrients than listed and the soil was more alkaline than normal (most soil in Sitka tends to be acidic).

A.J. Bastian and her family with their newly planted garden.

“I learned that mostly the grade of the soil is important,” Bradley said. “We did a lot of work gathering the soil and beach herring, only to have maybe not enough fertilizer. The only thing we did different this year is not put in store bought soil. I look forward to gathering my potatoes and plan to read up more on gardening. Hopefully next year we will be more successful.”

Michelle Putz has been contracted to coordinate the program and design lesson plans, after the Sitka Local Foods Network received a community development grant from First Bank. We also have about a half-dozen experienced Sitka gardeners who serve as mentors for the program. Also, we have started to recruit for 2-3 participants to join next year’s first-year program.

For more information about the garden mentor program, please contact Michelle Putz at 747-2708.

Garden mentor Linda Wilson with Anna Bradley and Anna’s daughter in 2014.

September 18, 2015 by Charles Bingham

• Sitka Local Foods Network receives 2015 Community Impact Grant

The Sitka Local Foods Network has been awarded a 2015 Community Impact Grant from the United Way of Southeast Alaska in the amount of $1,765 to assist with the network’s garden education program.

These funds will be used to create a downtown teaching garden (hopefully at Baranof Elementary School), creating a centralized garden that can be used to teach a variety of garden education classes throughout the year. The United Way of Southeast Alaska awarded Community Impact Grants to 11 Southeast nonprofit organizations in the areas of health, education, and income.

“The Sitka Local Foods Network appreciates the support of the United Way of Southeast Alaska,” said Michelle Putz, a Sitka Local Foods Network board member and member of the network’s education committee. “We look forward to developing a centrally located instructional food garden and a community education program that acts as a center of learning. This garden space will give us a new opportunity to teach local beginner gardeners of different ages how to produce their own food using the garden as an outdoor classroom. Next year we will be able to invite the community and gardeners of Sitka to an open, public location for bi-weekly classes for children and adults throughout the gardening year, focusing on different topics.”

“We always have more demand and requests for funding than we are able to give but in this competitive grant process the Sitka Local Foods Network ranked high in meeting targeted needs in the community,” said Rustan Burton, Chair of United Way of Southeast Alaska. “We are happy to partner with the Sitka Local Foods Network to meet this/these community need(s).”

United Way of Southeast Alaska is an independently governed, non-profit organization dedicated to strengthening lives, helping people, and improving community conditions in Southeast Alaska. United Way of Southeast Alaska and its partner agencies work to create real, lasting change by addressing the underlying causes of problems within our communities. Additionally, United Way of Southeast supports community programs and initiatives that help those in need and also prevent problems from happening in the first place.

The Sitka Local Foods Network’s mission is to increase the amount of locally produced and harvested food in the diets in Southeast Alaskans. To accomplish this, the Sitka Local Foods Network hosts the annual Sitka Farmers Market in the summer, operates the St. Peter’s Fellowship Farm communal garden (which grows produce to sell at the Sitka Farmers Market), and offers a variety of garden and food preservation classes throughout the year (including an innovative garden mentoring project for beginning gardeners).

To learn more about the Sitka Local Foods Network, go to http://www.sitkalocalfoodsnetwork.org/. You also can like our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/SitkaLocalFoodsNetwork, and you can follow us on Twitter at https://www.twitter.com/SitkaLocalFoods (@SitkaLocalFoods). For more information about the United Way of Southeast Alaska, go to http://www.unitedwayseak.org/

August 28, 2015 by Charles Bingham

• Sitka Local Foods Network education committee seeks new families for garden mentor program

For a third year (2015-16), the Sitka Local Foods Network (SLFN) education committee wants to help families in Sitka learn how easy it can be to grow some of their own food. We are looking for up to three families who would like to learn about and try vegetable gardening in their own backyard through our Family Garden Mentor project.

Through a series of six workshops to be held at the families’ homes, Sitka Local Foods Network education committee volunteers will help the families:

Choose a location for a vegetable bed (learning about sun, drainage, etc.),
Build (or find) a planter/container or raised bed, and acquire soil and soil amendments,
Learn about soil and prepare the soil for planting,
Plant 2-4 easy-to-grow plants — specifically potatoes, lettuce, kale, and maybe a perennial edible such as rhubarb or fruit bushes,
Learn to take care of their plants over the summer — teaching how to care for and pick the vegetables (without killing the plant),
Harvest potatoes, and
Cook a meal using the vegetables they have grown.

The Sitka Local Foods Network will provide all materials — soil, lumber, seeds, etc. — free to the participating families. Families will be expected to provide the labor, enthusiasm for gardening, and healthy appetites to eat the vegetables they grow.

The requirement to own your property or home was dropped in 2015, and people who rent now are participating through container gardening. Interested families must meet only three requirements:

They must be first-time vegetable gardeners (this project is meant to help people who are just starting to garden, not people with previous experience, even if it was not in Alaska),
They must want to try vegetable gardening and be committed to participating throughout the summer, and
They must agree to let others come and attend classes at their property.

Other criteria, such as availability and interest in a second year of mentoring, will also be used to help select the final three families. Families that are not selected will be placed on a waiting list in the hope of future continuation and expansion of this project.

The Sitka Local Foods Network has expanded the program this year to include more families and to include at least two households living in rental housing that will garden in portable containers or planters appropriately sized for their space (in case moving is necessary). We also will offer a second year of mentoring to previous participants, so families can expand their knowledge and try growing more “difficult” vegetables such as carrots and green onions.

Workshops may start as early as this fall or winter with selecting the site, ramp up in the spring of 2016 and run through September’s late harvest. First-year classes will focus on the easiest-to-grow vegetables (and fruit) in Sitka — potatoes, lettuce, kale, and rhubarb.

Families interested in participating should contact Michelle Putz at 747-2708, and provide a name, address, and contact phone number.

August 27, 2015 by Charles Bingham

• Help the Sitka Local Foods Network education committee brainstorm ideas for a 2016 Sitka garden tour

St. Peter’s Fellowship Farm Lead Gardener Laura Schmidt, right, shows off the garden to members of the International Master Gardeners Conference cruise that toured Sitka in September 2013.

Do you have a food garden in Sitka you love to show off? Do you have a friend or neighbor who always seems to be growing lots of fresh veggies and fruit?

The Sitka Local Foods Network education committee invites you to a meeting to brainstorm ideas for a possible food garden tour of Sitka in the summer of 2016 or 2017. The meeting will take place from 6:30-8 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 2, at the Sitka Unitarian Universalist Fellowship Hall (408 Marine Street, parking off Spruce Street).

Bring your ideas and help us come up with a plan for a garden tour. For more information, contact Jennifer Carter at 747-0520.

August 13, 2015 by Charles Bingham

• Sitka Local Foods Network education committee announces the inaugural Sitka Slug Races

The Sitka Local Foods Network education committee invites Sitkans to take part in Sitka’s first slug races.

“Do slugs move into your garden faster than a speeding bullet? Are you sure your slugs are breeding with Olympic runners and pole vaulters? Could you have the next winner of the Triple Crown? The Sitka Local Foods Network invites you to come and put your fastest slug to the test against Sitka’s best!” race organizer and SLFN board member Michelle Putz said.

The SLFN education committee will hold its inaugural Sitka Slug Races at 12:30 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 29, at the fifth Sitka Farmers Market of the summer at the Alaska Native Brotherhood Founders Hall (235 Katlian St.). Registration for the race is from 10 a.m. until noon.

Those interested in participating will pay $5 per slug entered into the race. Participants are encouraged to bring their own fast slugs, but “rental slugs” will also be available at the race. The participants with the three fastest slugs in Sitka will be crowned and awarded a certificate and commemorative pin.

“Slug races help to support Sitka Local Foods Network’s mission to increase the amount of locally produced and harvested food in the diets of Southeast Alaskans,” Michelle said. “By getting slugs out of our gardens and into the race arena, we are saving valuable cabbage, kale, onions, and other foods from their hungry mouths. And we’ll find out which slugs were tromping to and through our gardens the quickest!”

We ask those who bring slugs to only bring black slugs, which are not native to Sitka, and not the California banana slugs which are native (can grow to three inches or longer, usually yellow or shades of green). Also, please don’t release your slugs in new places. We don’t want to introduce any invasive species, and the black slugs (sometimes brown or gray) are pretty destructive to Sitka gardens.

Funds raised will be used to support the network’s projects and activities including family garden mentoring, garden education classes, the Sitka Farmers Market, and the St. Peter’s Fellowship Farm communal garden.

For more information about helping with the race or the SLFN education committee, please contact Michelle Putz at 747-2708.

June 19, 2015 by Charles Bingham

• KCAW-Raven Radio features Sitka Local Foods Network’s garden mentoring program in story

Vegetable gardening used to be a necessity for Sitka residents back in the day, but regular barges and daily flights made it easy for people to stop growing their own food and buy it at the store. If you didn’t have your own garden, you didn’t have fresh veggies. In recent years grocery prices and shipping costs have gone up significantly, so more Sitka residents are going back to gardening. But there are some Sitkans who haven’t gardened before.

That’s where the Sitka Local Foods Network garden mentoring program comes in. This program started in 2014 when the network mentored two first-time gardeners and their families through a year of growing four basic crops that do well in Sitka — lettuce, kale, potatoes and rhubarb. This year, our two original families are back for a second year with slightly trickier crops (carrots, chard, peas and green onions), and we have four new first-year families in the program.

Recently, KCAW-Raven Radio reporter Vanessa Walker attended a class at the home of Rebecca Kubacki to learn more about the program and how it’s helping Rebecca reconnect with her food (click here to listen to the story). All of our free garden mentoring program classes are open to the public and we try to announce the classes enough in advance so people can attend.

For more information about the garden mentor program, please contact Michelle Putz at 747-2708.

June 3, 2015 by Charles Bingham

• More classes set in 2015 Sitka Local Foods Network garden mentor program

The fourth classes for the 2015 Sitka Local Foods Network garden mentor program have been set for our four participating first-year families, and the classes will be open to the public. The classes will be similar at each location, except one where we will be planting a container garden instead of our usual raised garden beds.

The fourth class of the six-class series is about early harvesting and learning about which crops are ready to be picked and which should be left in the garden to grow some more. For our first-year gardener families, we teach them how to grow four hardy crops for Sitka — kale, lettuce, potatoes and rhubarb. These classes are essentially the same, so feel free to attend the class that best fits your schedule.

The class schedule and location for these first-year families is:

Josephine Dasalla, 1709 Halibut Point Rd., No. 31 (green trailer) — 4:30 p.m., Monday, June 8.
A.J. Bastian, 207 Brady St. — 4 p.m., Thursday, June 11.
Rebecca Kubacki, 1202 Halibut Point Rd. — 7 p.m., Tuesday, June 16.
Breezy, 616 Sawmill Creek Rd. — 6:30 p.m., Wednesday, July 1 (Note: this class was postponed from its original date of June 24).

Please note the classes at the Dasalla residence involve container gardens instead of building raised garden beds like we’ve done for our other families.

In addition, the third class for one of our other first-year students (Breezy) and second classes for our second-year students also have been set. These will be garden maintenance classes (slug and pest control, thinning, watering, garden care, etc.).

The two second-year families (Anna Bradley and Tami O’Neill) participated in the inaugural year of the program last summer, and now they’re back for more. Our two returning families will be planting carrots, chard, green onions and peas this year, which are slightly more difficult to grow than our chosen crops for first-year students. Even though this year’s crops are more difficult to grow, many gardeners in Sitka still have good results with these vegetables.

Again, the classes at each location will be similar, and they are free and open to the public. The schedule is:

Breezy, 616 Sawmill Creek Rd. — 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, June 4.
Anna Bradley, 4764 Halibut Point Road, 4 p.m. on Saturday, June 6.
Tami O’Neill, 2309 Merganser Drive, 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday, June 17.

For more information about the garden mentor program, please contact Michelle Putz at 747-2708.

May 31, 2015 by Charles Bingham

• Check out the June 2015 edition of the Sitka Local Foods Network newsletter

The Sitka Local Foods Network just sent out the June 2015 edition of its newly launched monthly newsletter. Feel free to click this link to get a copy.

This edition of the newsletter has brief stories about several new street food options in Sitka that are highlighting local seafood, a Blessing of the Garden ceremony at St. Peter’s Fellowship Farm, an update on a June 2 meeting for prospective and past vendors of the Sitka Farmers Market, and a reminder about the Plant a Row for the Hungry program. Each story has links to our website for more information.

You can sign up for future editions of our newsletter by clicking on the registration form image in the right column of our website and filling in the information. If you received a copy but didn’t want one, there is a link at the bottom of the newsletter so you can unsubscribe. Our intention is to get the word out about upcoming events and not to spam people. We will not share our email list with others to protect your privacy.

May 9, 2015 by Charles Bingham

• Third classes set for first-year students in 2015 Sitka Local Foods Network garden mentor program

The third classes for the 2015 Sitka Local Foods Network garden mentor program have been set for three of our four participating first-year families, and the classes will be open to the public. The classes will be similar at each location, except one where we will be planting a container garden instead of our usual raised garden beds.

The third class of the six-class series is about garden maintenance (slug and pest control, thinning, watering, garden care, etc.). For our first-year gardener families, we teach them how to grow four hardy crops for Sitka — kale, lettuce, potatoes and rhubarb. These classes are essentially the same, so feel free to attend the class that best fits your schedule.

The class schedule and location for these three families is:

Josephine Dasalla, 1709 Halibut Point Rd., No. 31 (green trailer) — 4 p.m., Thursday, May 14.
A.J. Bastian, 207 Brady St. — 4 p.m., Tuesday, May 26.
Rebecca Kubacki, 1202 Halibut Point Rd. — 7 p.m., Tuesday, May 26.
Breezy, 616 Sawmill Creek Rd. — TBA (waiting for soil upgrade).

Please note the classes at the Dasalla residence involve container gardens instead of building raised garden beds like we’ve done for our other families.

This is the second year of the garden mentor program, and our two families from last year — Anna Bradley and Tami O’Neill — are back for a second year where they will learn how to grow a few more difficult crops for Sitka, such as carrots and onions. Their first classes recently were announced and take place in May. These classes also are open to the public.

Michelle Putz has been contracted to coordinate the program and design lesson plans, after the Sitka Local Foods Network received a community development grant from First Bank. We also have about a half-dozen experienced Sitka gardeners who serve as mentors for the program. For more information, please contact Michelle at 747-2708.