Raised Bed Gardening in Alaska – What We Learned After a Winter Storm

See the results of a winter storm that hit our garden in Kodiak, Alaska and how we assessed the damage. Hint: Our covered raised garden beds saved the day! Join me during my walk-through so you can take a closer look at the amazing resilience of plants. You”ll see the benefits of covered raised beds and their role in safeguarding vegetable gardens against the elements.

— RESOURCES —
💚 Marion’s short list of trusted tools and resources: https://gardenerscoach.com/resources/
📕 21 FREE GUIDES to support you on the garden path: https://gardenerscoach.com/guides/library/

— LINKS —
► Maximize Your Raised Garden Beds With These Simple Upgrades: https://youtu.be/RJAYIdkHQlI

— MUSIC —
► Implosions by Reveille
► Rooted by LNDO

I’m about to do something
that makes most gardeners very nervous,
and that is to go outside in the garden
after a big storm.
So here we go.
The good, the bad, and the ugly,
and hopefully the not so bad.
(mellow guitar music)
Okay, here we go.
Out to the main garden.
Oh, sun’s going down.
So I can see that the wind
has ripped off some of the plastic,
and it’s not surprising in some ways,
because normally what I
do to secure the plastic,
here, I’ll show you over
here, to the raised beds,
is I take lath strip and I screw it down
on the top of these raised
beds, and then I clamp down.
So you can see on either
side, I do this in the fall.
And this is the garlic bed.
I’ll show you what’s going on inside.
I’m gonna pinch off these clips.
This one’s pretty rusty.
I know, these are 2-inch binder clips.
You can get ’em in office supply stores.
This one’s pretty rusty.
This one’s fairly new.
I always ask Santa Claus
for some every year.
And these will last for many years.
I swear by these.
And then this plastic here is
a nylon reinforced plastic.
This is what construction
workers use and so on,
on projects just to, I don’t know,
protect whatever their equipment
and sides of buildings and so on.
And they last for a long time.
We have some sections
that have been around
for, like, 10 years.
And even if this does
rip the nylon fabric,
the reinforced areas prevent it
from actually ripping apart entirely.
Say hi to the garlic
bed, planted in the fall.
But you can see even though
that we’ve had freezing temperatures,
this is January now,
freezing temperatures,
the soil is friable, that is, fluffy,
and it’s not rock solid.
And one of the reasons also
that I cover the raised
beds with the plastic
and these PVC hoops is
so that our winter rains
don’t wash away all the nutrients
that I work really hard
to put into the soil.
So right, looking pretty good.
I’m gonna secure this again
because I think it’s gonna
freeze again tonight.
There you go.
This bed I’m not worried about,
because perennials are in this
bed, and that’s just fine.
They do great.
So let’s take a look here.
Ooh, on the ground.
Okay, so the wind must
have popped this guy off,
and that’s why these raised
beds lost their cover.
I removed the lath strip couple weeks ago
’cause I wanted to be
able to access these beds
and harvest what was still edible.
And (chuckles) this little
sign here that says patience,
that’s funny.
This is cress.
It doesn’t look very happy right now.
It’s called wrinkled
crinkled crumpled cress.
And it’s a fabulous green, very hardy.
And it actually tops kale as
the most nutritious green.
Now back here we’ve got lettuce.
Doesn’t look really happy either.
But I am not going to pull it.
I’m just going to cover
up these beds again.
And in my experience, I’ve actually had
lettuce look sad like that to rebound,
and I can still harvest in the spring.
So let’s cover up these beds.
‘Cause like I said, it’s
gonna freeze tonight.
(upbeat rock music)
Just like that.
It’s a very easy clipping setup like this.
And like, if I was to really secure this,
I would put the lath strip right on top
and put screws through it.
But I’m gonna just keep a close lookout
on the wind and the weather
and make sure that these guys
are gonna survive the wind.
All right, coming over to this bed.
This really got wrecked.
And let’s see if I can
pull up these leeks.
Not gonna happen, see that?
It’s just frozen solid.
And that’s because the
rains soaked the soil
and then it froze, and it’s rock hard.
But I will cover this up.
But I wanna show you the
difference between this soil here,
which is uncovered, compared to over here.
You’ll love this.
Unclip it.
Ha! See that?
That is spinach.
I sowed the spinach in early September.
And the soil here is
fluffy, it’s not frozen.
I can stick my hand all the
way into the soil like that.
And come February 20th,
when the day length
bounces above 10 hours,
growth will resume, and we’ll
be able to harvest spinach
in late February.
I could actually harvest this now,
but I’m gonna let these guys get bigger.
That’s one of the huge benefits
of covering your raised
beds over the winter.
(upbeat rock music)
Wow, that’s really cool.
Okay, we got the job done.
All the raised beds are secured
and buttoned down against the weather.
There’s another westerly coming
in from the Gulf of Alaska
and it’s gonna be cold.
So thanks very much for joining me,
and I hope you have a
great rest of your day.
Cheers.
(soft relaxing music)