Hi, I'm Heidi Rader, here in the Alaska Garden.
I'm with UAF Cooperative Extension Service and Tanana Chief's Conference,
and I'll be talking all about growing vegetables, flowers, and berries in your garden and farm.
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Strawberries and raspberries are ubiquitous
in Alaska gardens, and I, for one, never tire of eating them.
But there are other lesser known types
of berries that also thrive in interior Alaska
that are worth trying.
You might even find a new favorite.
Saskatoons, or serviceberries, haskaps, or honeyberries,
currants, and gooseberries are well adapted to interior Alaska growing conditions.
I love the tart, unique taste of currants.
There are many varieties to choose from.
Saskatoons are incredibly prolific and productive.
They can be eaten fresh or in baked goods or canned.
Haskaps or honeyberries are also prolific
and have the added benefit that they
mature earlier than other berries, which
extends the time you can be eating fresh berries.
I love the tart flavor of currants, which is excellent
when made into syrup or jam.
Growing berries is not as straightforward as growing,
say, lettuce or carrots, but at least
you don't have to plant them every year, since usually, they're perennials.
Most berries benefit from full sun, mulching, compost,
weed control, disease prevention measures,
plentiful pollinators, good drainage,
and consistent watering, but berries vary substantially
in their day and night length requirements, fertility needs,
ideal pH, cold tolerance, required pruning regime, and pollination strategies.
For example, haskaps are self-incompatible,
meaning you must plant two different cultivars
for cross pollination to occur, and those cultivars also
need to bloom about the same time.
Alaska Berries Farm is a good source for haskap plants,
and they've even bred some of their own varieties.
Cultivation requirements don't just
vary between, say, strawberries or currants.
There are even different requirements
for different types of currants or strawberries.
For example, black currants and red currants
have different pruning regimes,
while how you grow wild everbearers,
June-bearers or day neutral strawberries
vary substantially.
Summer bearer, florican fruiting,
primocane fruiting, everbearing, June-bearing, and day neutral
are all terms that either describe when a cultivar
fruits, which is usually linked to its response or lack
thereof to day length.
These terms can be confusing because they are not
consistently used among nursery owners,
and cultivars likely will perform differently,
in the land of the midnight sun, than their name might indicate.
It's important to understand which of these types
will grow in your part of Alaska.
All that to say growing berries is not
as simple and straightforward as growing vegetables.
If you're lucky, maybe you happen
to have native berries like highbush cranberries,
low bush blueberries, or lingonberries, which are also
called low bush cranberries, already
growing on your property.
I used to have an incredible blueberry patch in my backyard.
If not, you can always plant them and cultivate them
like you would non-native berries.
Unfortunately, cloud berries do not
grow well under cultivation.
Berry plants can be purchased locally,
but to find a specific variety, sometimes, you need to search online.
Unfortunately, many nurseries do not ship to Alaska.
There are so many berries to try here in Alaska,
so go beyond strawberries and raspberries and give it a try.
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