A Seed Is Planted: Year One Results of the Unalakleet Muktuk Marston Victory Garden

     

Students helping deliver this year's crop to local elders (Photo courtesy Nick Bruckner)

 There is something magical about the potato.  Dig a hole, drop it in the ground, water it (or don’t), hill it (or don’t), and it multiplies itself.

  When we started planting the victory garden this spring, no one was sure what to expect.  More than a handful of volunteers didn’t realize that a seed potato was just a potato.  When 1600 pounds showed up, they were somewhat shocked.

The ground that had not been worked for years fought our efforts at first.  It was too wet and sucked in the equipment we used to break it up.  Then it was too hard and resisted every attempt to sink a spade.  

The volunteers invested their sweat equity with smiles on their faces, but secretly were unsure they would ever see a dividend.  

This summer’s growing season in Unalakleet was about ideal.  There was plenty of sun and it rained at least every couple of days.  We were set up to irrigate, but conditions were such that we only got to fire up the new water pump once.

Who could tell what was going on below the soil in these mulched potato rows?

We mulched for weed control as much as our young 4-year-old apprentice would allow.

“Dad!  I’m getting eaten,” I would hear from across the field.

In Ellen’s defense, she does not remember interior Alaskan mosquitos.

“Let’s go Dad, I’m itchy!”

They were slow at first, but with each trip up to the field, we were greeted with more and more plants pushing up through the clay.  Even so, it was hard to say what was really going on below the surface.

The first killing frost knocked back the plants and signaled that it was time to harvest.  There is a short window in Alaska between killing frost and frozen like concrete.  Families gathered at the field unsure what to expect.

“Wow, this comes from one seed?” a surprised volunteer laughed as he turned his first spade full of soil over and beautiful Yukon Golds tumbled out.

Kids ran through the field looking for the biggest, smallest, weirdest… bounding from hill to hill “helping” the adults draw the harvest from the ground.

By the time the whole field (about a half-acre) was harvested, the small crew of volunteers had gathered around 3000 pounds of potatoes.

“It’ll be a little easier next year,” Abel commented as he loaded his crew into their truck.

“We will have more things in place when we do this again,” another dad agreed.

“Yeah, next year…”

This year, a seed was planted.  Yes, potato, but beyond that, a seed was planted showing families that we can produce our own food again like our parents and grandparents did.  And, maybe we can even live out Muktuk Marston’s ideal of an agriculturally self-sufficient bush Alaska.  At least in our little part of it.

Potato Holiday of the past (photo courtesy Jeff Erickson)

This Year’s Numbers:

1600# of Seed Potatoes (About 1000# planted)

½ Acre Planted

3000# of potatoes harvested

75 Elder Households fed

30 Volunteer families receiving shares of potatoes

Thank you again to our partners:

Marston Foundation Northern Air Cargo Everts Air Cargo AK Specialty Crops

Susitna Organics Unalakleet Covenant Church Bering Straits Native Corporation    

North River Bible Camp

Native Village of Unalakleet        Norton Sound Seafood Products