Food Not Lawns - Alaska

SITKA, Alaska

The notion that it’s impossible to grow vegetables in Sitka falls away quickly when you visit Florence Welsh. Cabbages the size of bowling balls line one side of the her driveway, and giant cauliflower ears, lettuce beds, and broccoli are just a few steps away.

Next to her garage, up a slight hill, are fresh flowers, with pink and purple canterbury bells and delphiniums growing under the protection of a roof that keeps the rain off and shields them from the wind.

Growing beds are around every corner with potatoes, zucchini, carrots, chives, mint, basil, chard, rhubarb, and fennel — the list goes on. A good deal of what Ms. Welsh is growing, including fresh cut flowers, will be available at this year’s Sitka Farmers’ Market.

Besides Welsh, market co-coordinators Kerry MacLane and Linda Wilson said, there are two other main vegetable providers who will operate tables at the market: Gimbal Botanicals, which is run by Hope Merritt, and the Sitka Local Foods Network, which has been tending to the St. Peter’s Fellowship Farm.

All three operations are completely organic, grown with post-spawn seaweed as the primary fertilizer.

It is a technique that Welsh has advocated since 1984, when she began her growing operation in Sitka. She avoids chemicals and uses lightweight, gauzelike row covers to keep bugs off her developing plants.

In Sitka, Alaska, ‘food not lawns’ takes hold | csmonitor.com

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