For Week 2 of the HIA Community Garden Series, we discussed using seaweed as fertilizer for your plants. Before the class, AYS and HIA staff ventured to Long Island in search of rockweed. We found an abundance! Using a pulley system to haul totes up the steep cliff, we filled a truckload with washed-up seaweed (along with a few mussels) collected from the beach. After applying the seaweed to the community garden, community members were able to take some for their personal gardens!
The truck-full of rockweed!
Among the attendees, there was a range of individuals who either had or did not have a personal garden. Makayla Hecker, ISP’s Safety & Sustainability Technician, mentioned that she “kind of-sort of” has a garden. For the first time, amid Camp Yukon where ISP employees stay, there is a garden growing a variety of vegetables and wildflowers. With beds made from kayaks and plywood, she plants and maintains the garden alone and anticipates harvesting it by herself as well. Makayla was able to make seaweed tea from the garbage bag full of rockweed she collected during the class.
Several methods can be used to prepare seaweed fertilizer. You can make seaweed tea by soaking seaweed at a 1:1 ratio with water for several weeks, then straining the liquid. With this method, you can apply the tea directly to your plants. Alternatively, you can grind down sun-dried seaweed by laying it out in thin layers and allowing it to sit in the sun for three days before sprinkling it on your garden beds. Another option is to mix fresh seaweed into the soil or use it as a mulch layer. This is how we used seaweed in our Tlingit potato (k’únts’) and community gardens. Hoonah Indian Association: Environmental has employed this method for several years, and our plant productivity has been growing exponentially! Using seaweed as fertilizer is a practice that has been utilized for hundreds of years, especially for growing Tlingit potatoes. Traditionally, seaweed and fish innards were planted by the beach, where they would decompose and provide nutrients for the potatoes. Although our garden is a bit further from the beach, the use of seaweed continues.
Tlingit potatoes, or Maria’s potatoes, are a traditional food that has been present in Tlingit gardens for over 200 years. Traditionally, families planted them in the spring before leaving for their fish camps and harvested them upon returning home in the fall. Tlingit potatoes are often described as “plant it and forget it.” Deer don’t really bother them, nor do slugs! Unlike other potato varieties, it is not necessary to hill—cover potato plants as they grow—to prevent them from greening. Tlingit potatoes grow wide rather than tall, so plant them about 1 to 1.5 feet apart on all sides. Depending on the length of the sprouted eyes on your seed potatoes, plant them about 3 to 8 inches deep, with the sprouted eyes facing up towards the sun. If the sprouted eyes are very long, it’s best to plant them sideways. For soil composition, Sitka Forest Service recommends a mix of 1/3 any soil, 1/3 sand, and 1/3 fish waste. To avoid attracting bears, use mature compost that has been fully broken down. For Tlingit potatoes, plant them in a south-facing garden to ensure they receive the most sun possible. If you received a raised bed from the class, it’s recommended to add a total of four seed potatoes to account for their width. The potatoes we plant are most likely genetically identical to those originally brought to Southeast Alaska by past generations.
In an interview with Miakah Nix, the Kake Garden Champion, she describes their methods for cultivating Tlingit potatoes. Having spent five seasons with the k’únts’, she states that they are constantly learning and evolving their growing methods. They have two sites where they grow potatoes: one in town using raised beds and another in a remote location on the beach. For the raised beds, they amend the soil with sand and top the mixture with rockweed, using it as fertilizer. For the remote beach beds, they use piles of straw with rockweed on top of the potatoes. From her experience, the k’únts’ grown in the raised beds develop larger potatoes with thicker skins compared to those grown at the beach sites, where they produce very succulent baby potatoes. Along with the rockweed fertilizer, they have started a sea star compost pile that will eventually be added to next season’s Tlingit potatoes!
As the seaweed decomposes, it releases nitrogen and potassium into the soil—two of the primary nutrients required for plant growth—along with many micronutrients and bioactive compounds. Seaweed also serves as a good deterrent for snails and slugs due to its salt content and sharp edges once dried.
In general, the best times to apply fertilizers are before planting or sowing (to ensure nutrients are readily available as roots establish), during periods of active growth (when plants are growing rapidly in height), and before flowering and fruit development. Fertilizer can also be applied after harvest to replenish nutrients in the soil for the next growing season.
Thank you to everyone who attended this class and helped support our potato & community gardens! We hope you learned something new, and we will see you next week!
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