Ben Polley

I'm way late to the party on this thread so I'm not sure how helpful this is. I used winstrip trays last summer and loved them. I have 10 each of the 50, 73, and 128 trays and still ran out of tray space. If I can find the money, I'll probably buy more. They're a bit pricey, but I doubt I'll ever break them. The only thing I don't like about them is that I can't use my fingers to pop the plugs out of the 72 and 128 trays. A stick worked though.

I used them for kale, cabbage, lettuce, peas, celery, lots of squash varieties, beats, fennel, various herbs, and lots of flowers for my bees. I wasn't sure about the beats as transplants but they were about the best performing crop I had last year. You can germinate inside, thin as needed, then plant them out on perfect spacing.

They are SO much easier than soil blocks. I used them for years and will never go back. Bootstrap Farmer sells a similar product for a little cheaper, but I've not tried it yet. As of now, they only sell the 72 cell trays, but the finger hole in the bottom looks bigger. I may buy some just to compare alongside my Winstrip trays.

Vickey,

I'm in 3b/4a (Kenai/Soldotna) and I just ordered cuttings of Adams, Johns, York, Wyldwood, and Nova (American varieties) and Marge (European variety) to see if they would grow here. Even if the tops winter kill, I should still get some fruit from the American varieties since they fruit on new wood (Marge doesn't). Some elderberry farmers down south mow their rows annually. It keeps the plants smaller but does reduce harvest a bit. It can also delay harvest a couple weeks. That may be an issue here with our short growing season. An August frost may get the berries before they ripen.

I'm not anticipating any flowers this year. I just want to get them rooted and in the ground. I'll consider it a win if they go dormant in time and come back next spring. I'm definitely giving them a thick mulch to get them through the first winter. I'll pull it back in the spring so they warm up sooner. Then I'll re-mulch once they break dormancy to conserve moisture & fight weeds.

Fruit would be nice, but I mainly wanted flowers for honey bees. Haskaps and saskatoons are early and fireweed is late. Elderberry should (hopefully) provide my bees some food during June/July.

I still have about a foot of snow, so most outdoor plant experiments are paused right now. We'll see what the rest of spring/summer brings us.

Ben

Stephen B. Thomas wrote:From February 2023. Looks like there's not just a single moose hanging out, but two. They look quite young to me. Maybe both are female? Any thoughts on this?

Definitely young and I think different animals than the one seen in January. With a low degree of certainty, the one on the left may be a young bull. It looks a bit broader across the chest but that could just be camera angle.  I can't tell if it has antler pedicles or if I'm just seeing things. There seems to be something on its head at about the right location.

Attached is a photo of a slightly older bull moose walking across my patio.  He has shed his antlers already but you can see where they were attached. The pedicles aren't as easily discernable when they are just calves, but are a dead giveaway if you see them.

I'm no moose expert, but I did see three of them today when I ran some errands in town.

Ben

Hi George,

I live in south-central Alaska and have been trying to find ways to extend my growing season for years. Unfortunately, every year is different so what worked one year won't always work the next. I've tried black plastic, but it didn't work well for me. It seemed to shade the snow I was trying to melt. Clear plastic worked better,  but there is only so much that can be done while the sun is still low on the horizon.  I'm just above 60 degrees north latitude and  it seems like it isn't until early April that melting really starts to happen. Even then, the ground is too wet to work and too cold for germination. I still have about 3 or 4 feet of snow, so it may be May before I get to see my beds.

In years when I can get a snowblower into the garden, I like to remove as much of the snow as I can without tearing up my slightly raised beds. They're frozen fairly solid, so no worries about compaction. I then sprinkle wood ashes on the beds to darken the remaining snow. This melts the snow quickly, assuming you don't get a late spring snow that covers the ashes. Once the bed is exposed, the dark, moist soil is still too cold and wet for germination, but its weeks ahead of the non-treated spots. A low tunnel over the beds has helped me in the past.

It's not my favorite thing to do, but I also grow potatoes in plastic growbags placed on a large gravel area the previous owners created. I get good yields and the soil warms up quicker than does the ground. Plus, I don't have to invert my soil layers hilling or digging up the spuds. Crop selection is critical for cold-climate gardening. Long day onions, hard neck garlic, brassica crops, greens, potatoes, some kitchen herbs, peas, and the most amazing carrots and beets I've ever had make up the majority of my outdoor crops.

I have a small greenhouse with in-grpunds beds. I put cold hardy greens in there a couple weeks ago. I know it's cheating, but I also have a heater in there to keep it above freezing at night. I'm tired of grocery store greens and the overnight warmth breaks the momentum of the cold. I can generally get the greenhouse 20-30 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than outside temps during the day. I can't recommend enough a high tunnel or greenhouse. They not only help extend the season,  they add growing degree days to those heat-loving crops like summer squash and tomatoes.

I start most of my crops inside well before the snow melts. I put LED growlights under the kitchen cabinets and have taken over my wife's kitchen.  Once the seeds germinate, the seedlings goes out to the greenhouse to grow their sun leaves. Some crops just take too long to not start early. Things like leeks, tomatoes, and hard squashes have a hard time maturing if I don't start them early and/or we have a cool wet summer. I plant a lot knowing some crops won't perform.

Worst case scenario, have some sheets or row cover cloth on stand-by if you get bedeviled by a June or August frost. They suck, but picking frost tolerant crops helps that be less of a concern.

Good luck,
Ben

H Hardenberg wrote:

I thought spacing for sunflowers was 2 or 3 ft, do you space your's that far apart? I planted Mammoth sunflowers last year, but while the flowers were beautiful, their height was decidedly less than Mammoth. I didn't bother to collect seeds . I am trying again this year to grow cucumbers up them, but in preparation for getting chickens, I'll try to plant more I think. Especially if they don't need that much room

I start my sunflowers in soil cubes in my unheated greenhouse in April so they can go in the ground in May. They get planted fairly densely on about 1 ft. spacing. I plant them in a fairly blocky arrangement for good pollination. I get more bumblebees than honeybees on them. I love it when the bees are too "drunk" to fly home and spend the night on the flowers.

I tie a ribbon around the first few heads that appear so I know who my early bloomers are for seed selection. I introduce new color varieties occasionally to spice up the genetics. Shorter, smaller plants work better for my needs. They provide beauty, habitat, and then feed for my hens. They can also provide a privacy screen and some shade if need be.

I raise black soldier flies in an insulated grow-tent in my garage. My climate is too cold to raise them outside, even in the summer (Alaska). I have to add supplemental heat to keep their enclosure above 70 degrees F. I also use a blue spectrum grow light and fake plants to encourage breeding. I feed my hens both larva and dead adults. They love them and give me more eggs in return. I feed the larva a combination of kitchen scraps and coffee grounds collected from church. What the bugs don't eat is added to the compost pile. Their frass is scooped up with the leftovers and enriches the compost. The larva really enjoy the salmon carcasses I add in the summer. They pick the bones clean in about 12 hours. They also seem to enjoy leftover bones from making bone broth. Once they are done with them, I can crumble the bones in my hands and add extra calcium to the compost/garden. The larva are high in soy-free protein, fat, and calcium. They turn trash into chicken food.

I've also been growing sunflowers and selecting early maturing heads for saving seeds. My growing season is pretty short so early maturity is important. Growing several hundred sunflowers doesn't take much room. Each plant produces multiple heads of pretty flowers that bees enjoy. Moose (my main garden pest) don't eat sunflowers until after first frost. I collect the mature heads, let them dry all the way down, then feed them to the hens during winter. The provide good protein and something to do when the hens are cooped up. They get bored if I don't let them out into their run. I typically keep them in if it's below 0 degrees F. The seeds are small and the hens seem to relish eating them.

Next on my list to try is buckwheat. I don't feed corn or soy, even organic, since neither crop grows here. Eating local is important to me, and that applies to my hens too. We should find what produces best on our sites and use that. Chickens are omnivores, so don't forget their need for bugs.