A meandering blog with no clear topic. You will find me talking about knitting, building, kids, social and economic issues, Alaska, and lots of other stuff.

Monday, September 20, 2010

New crop





This is part of our potato crop this year, that we harvested this weekend. I don't think we got quite as much as last year, because it's been a very wet, cloudy, cool summer. But it's a respectable harvest, nonetheless.

Last year, we harvested enough potatoes that we saved 10 pounds for seed for this year, and still had enough potatoes that we didn't buy any potatoes between last August and this June. Almost a year's worth. We also had good strawberry and raspberry harvests, and I made strawberry, strawberry rhubarb, and strawberry raspberry jam this summer, all with fruit from our garden.

This is important to us, as we are working towards greater self sufficiency. There are several reasons for this, but the most important one is because we feel we have to. As I have said before on this blog, we are at the very end of a very long supply line, way up here in the far north. If that supply line were to be disrupted for any reason, us Alaskans would run out of food very quickly. And I don't think that possibility is so very farfetched as people would like to believe.
It could happen because of an earthquake, or tsunami. It could happen because the economy tanks, or the price of fuel gets so high that it costs too much to send all the barges up here that we are accustomed to. It could happen when the pipeline shuts down and 89% of the state's revenue disappears.

Better safe than sorry, right? So we grow a garden, and plan for more... More square footage in the garden, more types of vegetables planted, fruit trees, chickens, rabbits, eventually. Maybe a cow, or a goat, later on. Pigs, for sure. Potatoes are a good start.