Flattop Farm

12/14/2022

My homemade pusher for pushing the high tunnel plastic up from the bottom to get snow sliding. It’s lots of work no matter how you do it, but 4 of these - 2 which are 8 feet tall and 2 which are 4 feet tall for the lower areas — will make life much easier. They are 2.5 feet wide.

09/20/2022

Involve your children in growing and processing their food and they will find their own creative ways of understanding it and will be much more likely to enjoy it with you. It will stop being a chore and instead will be something they like to help with.

09/20/2022

16 pounds of homegrown Chiles, spicy & mild, roasted and not were chopped and fermented in a large crock with 2% salt by weight for 3 weeks. Follow along in the pics for details.

07/10/2022

Monster harvests coming in. This summer is scary dry, but the sun is shining and it provides a different feeling for the garden when smoke is in the air knowing places are burning but here is thriving. Variety is ‘Amazing’. Grown in the high tunnel with drip irrigation, planted in clumps of 2-3 every 2.5 feet. One 20 foot row might yield over 100 pounds!

06/26/2022

Gratuitous pumpkin pollination on this Sunday morning. We hope you are having peaceful moments enjoying your plants during this glorious Alaska growing season.

06/20/2022

Blanching the last round of peas for the day. We grew 3 varieties of dwarf peas and didn’t trellis or stake any of them to see how they perform. We still got a huge harvest, around 30 pounds in 20 feet so far and counting, and will be making some recommendations for container and small plot growing soon. Ultimately, we like picking varieties that are a little taller and so probably won’t plant all dwarf varieties again. But it’s good to know that there are varieties which only get 18” tall, don’t necessarily have to be staked, and can still produce high yields.

06/12/2022

One of my favorite chiles I discovered about 7 seasons ago is Chile de Agua, one of the true traditional heirloom chiles of Mexico from the southern state of Oaxaca, and belongs alongside Serrano and jalapeño in reputation. The fruitiness followed by jalapeño or higher heat is really unrivaled when harvested at orange-red ripeness. The tradition behind planting it comes from true craftsmen of growing using the Milpa companion planting methods. From mother earth news: “Traditionally grown in semi-arid lands, it was planted when the seasonal rains began by transplanting seedlings into cone-shaped beds made of adobe-like wet mud filled with leaf-cutter ant manure, then capped with more mud. The cap retained enough moisture in the soil for a few months if the weather didn’t cooperate, giving the village of Hidalgo Jaltepec fame for their yearly harvest of the chile de agua and their growing skills.”

05/25/2022

Another of my favorite new tools this year also comes from Johnny's Selected Seeds. It is a super sturdy 29” wide bed prep rake. Many market gardeners use 30” wide beds and so many tools are tailored for that width, including this one. This allows me to rake the whole bed in one pass which minimizes undulations from picking up and putting down the tool. This also allows for easier leveling of the bed. The angle of the 4” teeth are perfect for grabbing the small stones and wood which might interfere with germination. The handle is long and a larger diameter which makes it easy to grip. As I’ve said in a previous post, Johnny's Selected Seeds has greatly increased shipping rates to Alaska and its really a bad deal. I don’t know why they’ve chosen to pick on us when we have such a great need for growing tools and access to modern growing techniques. It does feel like price gouging. I had to seriously consider this purchase and I’m glad I made it as it has increased efficiency and uniformity.

Creates perfect seedbeds for successful precision planting. This Eliot Coleman favorite is so light, the user can support its entire weight even when fully ...

05/24/2022

It always feels great to have the high tunnel planted out. Our first crop of cut and come again greens will soon be replaced by green beans. We still have some cutflower seeds to plant and will do some succession planting, but the majority of the work is done!

05/23/2022

6 pounds asparagus makes 1.25 gallons pickled garlic dill asparagus + 1 pint pickled ends.

05/22/2022

It was a great high tunnel asparagus season! I am pretty conservative in stretching out the harvest time for our asparagus. The general rule is to stop picking when the average size is a little bit wider than a #2 pencil. I stop when probably 1/3 of the spears average that. I have 16-5 year old crowns of Ravel, Jersey Supreme, and Millenium and 20 3 year old Millenium in the high tunnel, and another 35 or so outside. All plants except a couple are from seed that I started myself, no crowns. Now that the indoor harvest is done, our outside are just beginning and it works as a perfect staging for extending the harvest period. The inside plants will now get some good organic nitrogen treatments, then 2” compost, and be allowed to grow out. People ask me how to grow strong asparagus in Anchorage. My key growing points are: Well draining soil planted on a hill 6-10” above grade. Mulch in the fall with 3”+ deep. Outdoor should have 4-5 years from seed before picking or 2 years from crowns. Give them plenty of nitrogen and water during the growing season! Asparagus’ biggest issue here appears to be from melting snow flooding it out when the ground is still frozen and the subsequent lack of water infiltration. It’s not a hardiness issue in Anchorage. That’s why we build up well-drained soils that can still deliver the water to the plants

05/22/2022

One of the best purchases I made this year is the collinear hoe from Johnny’s Seeds. It’s Eliot Coleman’s invention, so you know that it is a game changer in the garden. It’s a draw hoe used to slice w**ds in between rows and elsewhere using a kind of sweeping motion to your side and you hold it with your thumbs up. I’ll put a link to a video of him using it in comments. It’s an expensive item to ship from Johnny's Selected Seeds, especially given their enormous shipping price increases to Alaska. However, it’s a quality of materials product and for someone who prefers to be standing rather than bent over pulling w**ds, it really has made life much easier. It has made my goal of doing more frequent w**ding passes much easier, so long as the w**ds are hit at a young age. I like it so much, I’ll probably get another.

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