We have been growing potatoes at the community garden and this year is our best yet! We have increased our growing space, community involvement, and quality of soil thanks to funding from Ecotrust and the US Forest Service SASSi investments.
Spring planting
In May 2024, we pulled our Tlingit seed potato out of their winter storage. They overwintered beautifully! We have found that the crawl space under our building has good air flow and stays warm enough to keep the potatoes at a nice temperature so they do not sprout. We store them in burlap sacks for airflow. In the future, we’ll probably over winter them in the root cellar we built this year! We planted about 4 gallons of seed potato into our garden this year.
Summer Care
Through the summer we held a class on how to use seaweed in your gardens as fertilizer. Potatoes love it! Our students through the Alaska Youth Stewards (AYS) program harvested the seaweed and community members helped us add it to the gardens during the workshop. Through the summer AYS students helped weed the garden and keep it growing well.
Harvest!
In mid-September the posting when out to the community and school to come harvest the potato garden and people really turned out! Having K-5 Students there who were so excited to be picking was truly a thrill and had everyone smiling. Check out the video below to get your ears on eyes on the day! Total yield from the 4 gallons of seed potato is unknown, but we had enough to keep 5 gallons of seed potato for next season, give some potatoes to the Senior Center, and send every student home with a bag of potatoes to share with their family!
Community Garden Visions
Thanks to our Sealaska Intern Skye our community gardens produced more food than ever before. Projects like the community garden, potato garden, greenhouse and root cellar are all bringing us towards a vision that Hoonah is food secure and can provide vegetables and produce for itself 365 days a year. Year by year we are getting there!
CONGRATULATIONS HIA and Hoonah for a food security program in full bloomed action! Simultaneously growing fresh vegetables and gardeners!! How fun to hear the glee of children throughout the community- perfect use for their unleashed energy! Heartwarming!!!