ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – The growing season in Alaska is short, according to a local greenhouse expert, and they say if you want to eat your own food this winter, you need to start indoor planting now.
Melissa Lytwym helps with the family-operated Mid Valley Greenhouse.
She grows 70% of her food on less than one acre of land.
“I grow my own food and I know exactly what I put into it, where it came from. I harvested it and it’s the most rewarding experience that, you know, you can have, I think, as just a person,” Lytwym said.
She says there is no reason others can’t do the same thing.
When to start planting
“Right now is the perfect time to start your seeds. April is definitely seed starting season,” Lytwym said.
For those who have never gardened before, Lytwym offers advice.
“Find a credible source who knows how to garden in a northern climate and then just start a small garden and expand from there,” she said.
This week, she says focus on the basics… planting indoors or in a heated greenhouse: tomatoes, pepper, cucumber, pumpkin and even watermelon.
Lytwym demonstrated how to plant watermelon seeds.
“All you do when we plant seeds… Just take ‘em in your hand, and we just set one per cell right on top,” Lytwym said. ” Then all we do is we just push them down into the soil like that. And then we just pinch.”
Lytwym reminds Alaskans to water.
“You just want to water them when just the very top dries out. You don’t want to overwater them or anything once they’re just little seeds,” she said. “You can successfully grow a watermelon outside in Alaska.”
The planting doesn’t stop there. Near the end of April, it’s a whole new round.
“Around April 20th, you’ll start your seeds for your brassicas, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, corn, things like that,” Lytwym said.
“It’s so worth it because you really earn. I really understood the definition of you reap what you sow, and so I see all my work pay off, and my husband and I eat our food year-round, and it’s really cool,” she said.
Though the growing season may be short in Alaska, Lytwym says what you put in the ground today can feed your family tomorrow.
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