Garden Prep Work in Alaska
Here in Soldotna, AK, our growing zone is 4a. Our first and last frost give us roughly beginning of June til end of August to have plants in the ground out in the open. That being said…every second counts as far as taking full advantage of our summer. If you’re trying to find a place to start without absolutely breaking the bank, here are some things I found really beneficial during the last growing season:
This is the most success I’ve ever seen in a garden! Summer 2023
Raised Beds: Some great advice I got from a local greenhouse employee was that it doesn’t even need to be that high. Even raising the height of your bed with one 2x4 significantly increases the heat of your soil, which in turn speeds up your production rates. I ended up making beds with stacked 2x6’s. I won’t bother putting in dimensions, since you can easily customize it however. All I did was make a rectangle (no bottom, so that there isn’t a drainage issue, and set it on my property where I wanted it. No tilling the dirt below it, no laying down fabric, and it did great. Like REALLY great, actually. I grew some tender annuals in bulb crates, and not the case. They were just pitiful by the end of the season, even with great soil, fertilizer, and the same amount of sun as my other tender annuals. I think they were just too cold. I’m going to try putting them in raised beds next year to see if that helps. Probably cover them with a caterpillar tunnel and possibly landscape fabric? It all just depends on what I can afford, and I’m sure it’s the same for you. Best structural investment for your buck to start, in my opinion, is making a raised bed. It’s a great place to start.
This was the cheapest way I found to make raised beds. Nothing fancy, but worked like a charm!
Amended Soil: Let’s say you don’t want to opt for a raised bed. Maybe it’s too pricey, maybe you already have a designated area next to your house, and you just want to put stuff there. Easy Peasy. I did this with an area for my perennials this year. There is a spot next to our front porch that old bushes were in. They were so overgrown, and they needed to be pulled, but everything I would try to put in that area would do so poorly. It was just a clay muddy mess. I’d dig down to plant something, and I could see the water pool like I had just dug a nice bath tub for my plant’s roots. After the second year of no perennials coming back, I did quite a bit of repo work. I dug out most of the clay, tilled up the rest so it was relatively loose, then added a HIGH POROSITY soil, manure, and slow-release fertilizer. I chose a high-porosity so that my roots would have a chance to breathe a little. The high porosity soil vs. clay was about a 3:1 ratio. And there was a lot of manure, lol. This is the first year I’ve actually seen success in that area of my garden. My bleeding heart was absolutely thriving! You might not have clay, but if you live in Alaska, chances are you do. I’ll link what worked for me below. Hopefully it’ll help you out if you’re having trouble.
This soil is specifically designed for indoor growing, but the high porosity of it has been perfect for amending my soil. A lot of garden soils I’ve tried in the past are just too dense for my plants. It also expands up to 2-3X the original square form it comes in. So a lot of bang for your buck!
This is a 5-3-3 slow-release fertilizer that worked great as a general fertilizer. If you’re not testing your soil and amending it, I would start with a fertilizer like this. I didn’t bother getting my soil tested to see if this was the right ratio, and it worked just fine.
Lucy was happy to help me dig everything up, lol.
I honestly didn’t have a ton of success starting my seedlings indoors. Even with grow lights, the right humidity levels, blah blah blah. Everything would fizzle out pretty fast. I’m going to try again, because I know it’s something I need to get good at if I want a better head start. But my point is that if you don’t have a greenhouse or a fancy indoor grow set up, don’t worry about it. You can still have a nice garden. It may not reach it’s full potential, but we gotta start somewhere, right?! I put my sunflower seeds directly in the ground pretty late, and I was told I wouldn’t see any blooms because of it. There were blooms!! So, HA! I also got better results with my tender annuals than I expected, and I honestly think that my success was due to those two simple changes I made. Good soil and raised beds.
One more picture for good measure. I was so stinking proud of myself! Peep the cosmos in the back.
Of course things like landscape fabric, low tunnels, a heated greenhouse, high tunnels…are all great additions and options! But, for me, most of those are things I’m building toward. If I don’t take small steps, I’m just never going to do it. Maybe you’re the same way. Hopefully this helps encourage you to get out there and start gardening. I don’t know about you, but I’m counting down the days til next summer already!
