The product Leah Wagner and Nick Schlosstein sell is small, but it\u2019s one of life\u2019s essential ingredients \u2014 and they\u2019re growing it the natural way for Southeast Alaska\u2019s particular climate.<\/p>\n
They sell seeds sourced for Alaska\u2019s climate, and next year, they plan to begin selling an early ripening tomato, a pickling cucumber, and a cold-tolerant zucchini for their first Alaska-generated commercial seeds in 2017.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s more than just seeds, though. They also have a mission: to bring food closer to home, and to empower people to provide for themselves.<\/p>\n
Wagner had farmed several different places \u2014 the Mat-Su Valley, Arizona, Maine, and British Columbia \u2014 and was struck, when she came to Alaska, by how seeds weren\u2019t part of the conversation about \u201cthe gardening experience\u201d as much as they were in the Lower 48.<\/p>\n
So, after Wagner attended \u201cSeed School,\u201d they decided to try and help that conversation along.<\/p>\n
Right now, they have more than 100 kinds of seeds in their collection, and more than 60 for sale, that have come from coops and small farms, all bought because they grow well in Southeast Alaska\u2019s climate. Some of them are flowers, or non-edibles.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re always trying different varieties,\u201d Wagner said.<\/p>\n
Hundreds of varieties of seeds grown a hundred years ago are no longer commercially available.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a huge movement to get back to those varieties,\u201d Wagner said. \u201cThe best way to preserve seeds is to get more people growing them. If you want those varieties to stick around, you\u2019ve got to get them out there.\u201d<\/p>\n
There are also exchanges where people trade seeds \u2014 they\u2019ve gotten some \u201creally amazing seeds\u201d from Alaskan gardeners, including some varieties brought during homesteading days in the Gold Rush, or at other points in Alaska\u2019s history.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne thing we hope to do by providing good varieties is empowering people to start more from seed,\u201d said Schlosstein, who grew up in Anchorage and went to school at the University of Alaska Southeast. \u201cI think a lot of people are scared (to start from seed), thinking they can\u2019t get it off the ground. A lot of time people buy starts of things like kale, which is really unnecessary.\u201d<\/p>\n
Many times, that\u2019s actually bad for the plant, which \u201cwants to grow where it is,\u201d Wagner said.<\/p>\n
They\u2019ll also recommend certain seeds for clients with particular climates or challenges.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhenever we get an order from a customer in a place that we haven\u2019t before, we always look it up. We look at the elevation, what the climate is like in the summer\u2026 if they seem like a new gardener\u2026 and we can offer them some better suggestions. Growing lettuce in Juneau is no big deal, but maybe in Anaktuvuk Pass it\u2019s a challenge,\u201d Wagner said.<\/p>\n
Though they\u2019re working on crops targeted for Alaska\u2019s growing season, they also get clients from outside Alaska \u2014 even California, which can grow some of their crops in the winter.<\/p>\n
They set up a yurt last summer on the land they bought in 2012, the old Charles Anway homestead in Haines, and spent the last two seasons clearing their land. They use bikes to get around much of the time, and also wanted to live within the community itself.<\/p>\n
They use open (traditional) pollination and grow permaculturally, which the dictionary defines as \u201cthe development of agricultural systems intended to be sustainable and self-sufficient.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not without challenges. Southeast Alaska is \u201cprobably the least ideal climate to be growing seeds in,\u201d Wagner said.<\/p>\n
Drying the seeds in Southeast\u2019s climate, she said, is going to be the hardest part.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t ever expect seeds to be the new gold,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s a labor of love in many ways. Our main focus is to be to provide for ourselves, and to be able to eat well.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd to have a community that provides a lot of its own food. A better standard of food,\u201d Schlosstein added.<\/p>\n
Foundroot\u2019s website is http:\/\/www.foundroot.com\/.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Contact Mary Catharine Martin at maryc.martin@capweek.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The product Leah Wagner and Nick Schlosstein sell is small, but it\u2019s one of life\u2019s essential ingredients \u2014 and they\u2019re growing it the natural way for Southeast Alaska\u2019s particular climate. They sell seeds sourced for Alaska\u2019s climate, and next year, they plan to begin selling an early ripening tomato, a pickling cucumber, and a cold-tolerant […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":9851,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":7,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[74],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-9850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life","tag-arts-and-culture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9850"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9850\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9850"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=9850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}