Farragut Farm: Growing Vegetables in Southeast Alaska
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- Опубліковано 1 жов 2019
- This video documents a tour of Farragut Farm, which is a small commercial farm in Southeast Alaska run by Marja Smets and Bo Varsano. A group from Wrangell made the trip by boat with Breakaway Adventures in order to get to the farm located in Farragut Bay north of Petersburg on the mainland. The tour covers composting; the process of growing vegetable starts; workers & work season; early & later crops; growing zucchini, cucumbers, carrots, potatoes, garlic; movable greenhouses; pests; crop transportation & markets; prior land use & farming experience; tools; and harvest prep & packaging. See additional description of the updated composting system below*
For more detailed information about Farragut Farm listen to the podcast: www.farmertofarmerpodcast.com/...
And visit their facebook page:
/ farragutfarmllc
Music:
Cattails - Thatched Villagers by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (creativecommons.org/licenses/...)
Source: incompetech.com/music/royalty-...
Artist: incompetech.com/
* I asked Bo what he meant when he said, "We don't use those anymore" referring to the composting bins, and he emailed clarification:
"Making compost has been primarily my department and in the summer time it (hopefully in the past!) occupies a big % of my overall farm labor. We always used to just do the bin to bin flip method and turned all the piles every 2 weeks by hand with a pitchfork...a LOT of work when you have 9 piles."
"A couple of years ago we started composting in larger free standing piles (no bins) outside using "filter fabric" geotex cloth as a covering material. This stuff allows the pile to breath and pass moisture out but it also does a really good job of wicking the rain down around the pile through the fabric and keeps the piles quite dry. At first we turned the piles by hand but now we use the tractor. It takes about 10 minutes to turn a big pile with the tractor and about 2 hours to do it by hand."
"We also built the hot tub time machine this year and when we figure out how best to feed it I think it will also be a productive and low labor way to make compost. We still used one set of bins this year but to a lesser extent than normal and I think we will phase them out completely next year."
This is the video where I subscribed to your channel over a year ago! I had done a UA-cam search with the search words, "Farming in Alaska," and this is one of the videos I click on and watched...and decided to subscribe! Then when your next video was posted that week, I was impressed with the beautiful straight garden rows, the wild deer, and the squirrel you have as a neighbor! Over the past year, I and my family have enjoyed watching as the season's change, rain dancing, sun dancing, morphing into a Covid Fly, river camping, delivering veggies to your customers, and Tyler driving the Forklift and now running the tiller for you! What a great gardening channel you have...best wishes from my family, always and forever!
P.s...I just noticed that you received an SEO score of 95 % on this video! Many new and growing channels have no idea how to SEO a video! They could learn from you...!
@@TheMrCloak Cool! That was such an amazing tour. When I had my little organic produce & grocery store in Wrangell a few years back, I used to buy their vegetables during the summer and they would get them on an airplane from Petersburg in order to ship them to me. This tour was the first time that I was able to visit their farm.
Thank You, I think that the photograph works really well for a thumbnail and I tried to keep the title simple and relevant for someone searching for vegetable farming in Southeast Alaska.
@@kathivy, you said, "I tried to keep the title simple and relevant." You did, a great job, it was number one the day I found it...
I finally got to finish watching! Sooooo interesting! What a big production they have going. Quite impressive. This was a great video. Not only interesting and informative but getting to see the sights going to and from was fun too. Nice job!!
Judi Ivy yes it was a jolly day all around between the boat trip and seeing so many interesting things on the farm. There were so many other things I wish we had time to see like their root cellar and stuff, and I thought of so many other questions later 🤪
I've been waiting for this video for a while and I can say man was it worth the wait! Usually getting to a farm is the boring part but not this one. I love how you went straight after the compost. Every part of this farm seems to be well thought out and you did an awesome job laying it out for us. I guess if I had to pick one thing to go into more detail about it would be to hear more about their no till approach. For us extra nerdy gardeners. Excellent job editing and putting this video together.. You also did a great job of getting the details from this guy about what he's doing. Thanks for sharing.
Paxtiano Dirt Frog yeah, there were so many more things that I wanted to know but we didn’t have time. He did say that they use the tilther to prep beds for direct seeding, but I didn’t ask how that works if they have a cover crop on the bed. I was machine-gunning so many questions that I hardly let Bo finish talking sometimes - it was kind of embarrassing when I watched the video later 😄 Maybe I’ll get a chance next year to get up there again and pick their brains some more!
Really enjoyed this video, very interesting to see how other people grow stuff and such lovely people.Big thank you Katherine 🌱🌱🌱💕👏👏👏🌟
The folks at Farragut Farm are my heroes, and I hope that I become a successful farmer like them in a few years! Glad that you enjoyed the video, it was a great trip and we got a lot of useful information 😃
Amazing Bo and Marja.! Beautiful spread you guy's have there in AK.
jonathan briley they are pros and their veggies are delicious 😋👍 We’re lucky to have them here in Southeast!
We are two organic farmers interested in locating to SE Alaska. Especially we are interested in greehouse farming a quiet abandoned property there Do you have any contacts to lease or buy land? Thank you.
AbiMarcos each town here in Southeast Alaska is isolated on an island or there are a few towns on the mainland like Ketchikan and Juneau, but I don’t know if there is a realtor that looks at properties throughout this region. I personally don’t know of any properties. You would definitely want to come up here and take a look around at different communities because access can be difficult in some areas and shipping of infrastructure, equipment, and supplies is not always straight forward. Good luck 😊
Well, would you look at that...a pot-house! LOL...if I'm lying, I'm a dyin!
Ha Ha! Transplant room or something else probably would have been a better term for it 😁
@@kathivy , I remember this comment and how it put a smile on my face!
@@TheMrCloak pot house 🤭😄
how many acres is the farm may i ask? 😊
I think that it’s 3/4 acre, but they may have expanded to make it bigger. This is their Facebook page: facebook.com/FarragutFarmLLC/
Thank you for the video and for your response to my inquiry. Maybe we can go with you back to this farm next year? Do you have a way that we can stay in touch? Phone number? Email? Thank you again.
AbiMarcos my Facebook page is Ivy Patch Produce and my contact info is all there. Probably the best way to keep in contact is through email. Getting a boat to get to the farm cost about $1,000 with a bunch of us splitting the cost, so it’s probably not something that we will do again soon. There is a farmers conference planned for Petersburg coming up in February, but I’m not sure how that will be effected by the virus. I’m sure that Farragut Farm will put updates on their Facebook page concerning that 👍
Wow! You should have taken better notes
just kidding
@Wearephuct O I know, I can’t remember what they said was the make & model of the device used to inflate their greenhouses that big. My greenhouses are so small and pathetic and, if it’s not too expensive, I’d like to get that expando tool 😃👍
Do you have a phone number for these people?
@AbiMarcos oh darn, I only just now saw this comment! I hope that you were able to find their contact info on their Facebook page 😊👍
What due you due for cutworms and caterpillars and slugs? Pray (sigh). 😂
Mercies as thank you sister (love inn gsus' jealous gripping love).
God's uniquely fashioned footprints and love monger is more creative than the created, humans, the earFlings
Songs of Solomon 8:6-7 + 26
Escape from the cruel ones withinn/others
Ecclesiastes 7:16-18
Balance•s; The yin two the yangs and the Yang two the Yins
PRO verbs and Pro verb (AGES) 22:14
Between gawd and the individual•s
@@kevinandrewmoore9752 thank you for asking. I’ve started using insect netting on all of the greens and the lettuce so that the butterflies and moths can’t come in and lay eggs on the leaves. There are some caterpillars and cutworms already in the soil, so there will be a few damaged leaves, but much less than when I don’t use the insect netting. This is the first year that I’m trying insect netting all summer on the lettuce after it was destroyed by cutworms last summer.
For slugs, I do a number of things. One of the reasons that I plant clover underneath the greens is because the slugs seem to prefer eating the clover instead of the crop early on, then I later cut it back and remove many of the slugs with the clover. Then I put down wet boards or cardboard underneath the crop and any remaining slugs tend to crawl underneath during the day and I can pick them up and take them off the property. I also plant pac choi (bok choy) at the bed ends and many slugs travel to these plants because they love to eat pac choi, and then I can capture them under a wet log placed beside those plants.
In the lettuce, I remove many of the slugs while I’m harvesting and any that might remain are knocked off the leaves when I rinse them in the greens bubbler.
Slugs also really love the basil in the greenhouse, so I plant pac choi and radish at the bed ends, and the slugs are lazy and will often stop there and munch instead of moving on to the basil. I’m trying pansies and nasturtiums at the bed ends this summer because people say that slugs love to eat them. It also helps to have an early crop in the greenhouse that I remove along with some of the slugs. I also have toads in the greenhouse who eat slugs. I still have problems with slugs in the basil sometimes especially during rainy summers. Eventually I’d like to put what’s called a “slug fence” around the beds to keep the slugs out.
@@kathivy
Mercies as thank you for the responses.......as knowledge is powerfull; I lack much knowledge inn gardening. I am a beginner/novice.
I wasn't asking you the question but adore the reply. Mercies as thank you again though, tremendously and immensely in deed.
I was referring two the video. This is Farraguts response when asked the question, "what do you due about cutworms?" He responded, "pray".
Again, mercies for your reply though. It helps and imprints and grips inn deed. Mercies.
Have you ever tried broken eggshells? I herd slugs due knot care for grinded eggshells.
Mercies for your tyme, effort, sweat, blood and tears gawd gave you two reflect inn......
God's uniquely fashioned footprints and love monger is more creative than the created, humans, the earFlings
Songs of Solomon 8:6-7 + 26
Escape from the cruel ones withinn/others
Ecclesiastes 7:16-18
Balance•s; The yin two the yangs and the Yang two the Yins
PRO verbs and Pro verb (AGES) 22:14
Between gawd and the individual•s
@@kevinandrewmoore9752 ha ha yes, Bo said “pray” in response to that questions. I haven’t tried eggshells. I’m vegan, so that’s not an option. I do have sand bordering part of the garden in hopes of discouraging slugs from the outside, but when it rains the slugs drive right over the sand 😄