Zorza Szatkowski, 10, grinds apples for cider at the Mosquito Lake Victory Garden harvest party on Sunday.
“They’re beautiful. They’re fat,” Scott Hansen said, describing not bears full of salmon but the carrots at Sunnyside Farms.
“They’re translucent like carrots should be. And there’s lots of them.”
Hansen started growing commercially in Haines in 2016. This year, he said, his crops did well, for the most part. In addition to the pretty and plump carrots, “we had more strawberries than we could dream of,” he said. About 250 pounds of them.
Still, growing always has its challenges, especially in the Chilkat Valley, where weather, though often cold and wet, is variable. A late spring and inconsistent rain this summer meant crops, and growers, had mixed success.
Haines’ average May temperature in 2021 was 48.1 degrees Fahrenheit, compared to 53.2 in 2020, according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data. Average precipitation in July was the second lowest it has been since 2011, but June and September were wet compared to recent years.
“This year was an irrigation year,” Hansen said. “I had to water potatoes. I’ve never had to water potatoes.” Unlike Hansen’s carrots, which are on a plot in town, his potatoes are up the highway.
The Valley’s microclimates and varied soil composition mean a few miles can make a big difference for gardening outcomes. While Hansen’s crops generally did well, not all growers in the valley observed the same bounty.
Mardell Gunn, an experienced gardener at 38.5 Mile and co-host of KHNS’ Garden Conversation on Thursday mornings, said this year was remarkable for its inconsistency across the Valley.
Often, if her peas do well, Gunn said, everyone’s peas do well. If they struggle, others’ struggle, too. But that wasn’t the case this year.
“I think that the little microclimates that we all have in our yards and our valleys…were particularly important this year because of the late season and kind of cool weather,” Gunn said. “Overall, I would say that the consistency is that almost everything was late, and I would say that I had an okay year with most things. And a few things just did not do very well.”
For example, she said, “I don’t know why my carrots didn’t do well… I just pulled some today, and they were small. I mean, I never have small carrots.”
Gunn also said her raspberries this year were the “worst crop in 25 years that I’ve been growing them.” Normally, she harvests six or seven gallons of them. This year, she’s harvested only one.
Lynn Canal Conservation board member George Figdor (left) gifts garlic to Victory Garden coordinator Erika Merklin (right) to plant before winter.
But Gunn’s honeyberries, which she started growing four years ago, did well. For the first time, she produced enough to freeze for winter.
Erika Merklin, who manages the Victory Garden at the Mosquito Lake Community Center, said production at the garden this season was better than she had hoped for. She said a longtime gardener in the upper Valley told her that “the Victory Garden must grow on good vibes, because it’s doing so much better than my garden.”
While the Victory Garden performed well this year, which was only its second, Merklin said green beans and squash were minimal, likely due to a late planting with cold June weather and rain.
Every year seems to present new challenges for gardeners. This year, with its exceptions, was no exception.
As Gunn told the CVN, “I don’t think that this year is typical. I wouldn’t say it’s atypical, either.”
