Tag: alaska

Our summer in beans

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For Alaskans who grew beans in this year’s abnormal heat, the harvest exceeded expectations.

It may have even induced a little panic for those who sowed generously. Pleas from fellow Anchorage gardeners normally associated with runaway zucchini started showing up in my Facebook feed, in the context of beans.

Fortunately, our household ended up with just the right amount for two bean eaters’ annual needs.

Well, to be honest, at the end of the summer, I could have used couple more pounds of snap-tender beans to experiment with lacto-fermented recipes. But at that point, all but a few pods were swollen and ready for shelling.

I can’t complain though. This summer was a sizzling success story for beans. We vacuum packed them. We made a few beautiful jars of tightly-packed dilly beans. We “quickled” them with kombu and lemon. I added them to cabbage ferments, stir fries, and stews.

Shelling half-runner beans for freezing and drying.

This year I eschewed dependable, prolific bush beans and only grew runner bean varieties: my favorite St. George red-and-white variety; a few mystery beans saved from last year that grew to resemble the St. George variety; and a white-flowered, half-runner variety re-gifted by a gardener friend.

From the get-go, the half-runner beans had tough shells, so I let all of those mature into shelling beans. Until flowering ended, they attracted hordes of bees.

At the end of the summer, I shelled a dozen or so of the driest half-runner beans for possible replanting in the deck trellis next summer. The rest went in the freezer, because I’m no expert (yet) in deciding when to dry out fresh beans versus freezing them.

Piles and piles of speckled St. George runner beans for the freezer.

Thanks to this summer’s large crop, the months ahead should provide many opportunities to try runner beans in a wider variety of winter recipes. Now … if only we had as much salmon in the freezer!

Want to learn more? Read my ode to runner beans

Finding respite at elevation

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In mid-June, I finally stopped spending all my spare time puttering in the vegetable garden and made some dates to hike with friends and look for plants.

It’s now two weeks into July. We’re past the “peak flower” time for wildflowers in the Chugach Mountains. I’ve been too busy to post about each adventure but have saved up some memories and pictures to share in a few photo galleries.

My hiking group will have bittersweet recollections of one hike late June. Several of us joined a 7 a.m. trip that started on the lower slopes of Pioneer Peak – the familiar massif that looms over Palmer, Alaska. Six days later, we found out that one of our hiking companions and two others, including her husband, had died in a small plane accident.

Also, in recent weeks, Alaskans have been suffering from record-level heat, smoke from wildfires, and the dumpster fire of Alaska’s political situation. Higher elevations have been providing many of us with a little respite from all of the above.

Click on the pictures for a closer look.

Pioneer Peak trail, June 23 with the Alaska Native Plant Society:

  • Dwarf Dogwood
    Cornus canadensis, dwarf dogwood or bunchberry
  • Elderberries
    Native elderberry fruit have toxic seeds but some people strain them out to make jelly and other edibles.
  • Elderberry flowers
    Elderberry flowers are edible but these are too far along.
  • plant
    The “seed cups” of Chrysosplenium tetrandrum, Northern Water Carpet, look like flowers from a distance.
  • Angelica
    Emerging bud of Angelica lucida, seacoast angelica.
  • Angelica flowers
    New shoots of Angelica lucida can be eaten but the flowering stalks (second year growth) are not edible.
  • plant
    Heuchera glabra (alpine heuchera) is easy to identify if you grow commercial cultivars in your own garden, like I do!
  • flower
    Streptopus amplexifolius, known as twisted stalk or watermelon berry, has sweet little flowers.

Hatcher Pass, Gold Cord Lake trail, June 30

  • Veronica Wormskjoldii, Alpine Veronica, or a related variety.
  • coltsfoot
    A variety in the coltsfoot (Petasites) genus, probably Frigid Coltsfoot, at its most beautiful.
  • Lake
    Amazing views, not many flowers, on the back side of Gold Cord Lake.

Hatcher Pass, Craigie Creek trail, July 6, with the Alaska Native Plant Society

  • native orchid
    Alaska has orchids. This is Plantanthera dilitata, Bog Candle.
  • larkspur
    Larkspur, delphinium glaucum, admire but do not eat!
  • Cow Parsnip and larkspur on a hot summer morning.

Denali State Park, Ermine Hill Trail, July 7

  • flowers
    Fireweed and Monkshood tangled up in a meadow.
  • flowers
    The green blossoms of false hellebore, Veratrum Veride, a highly poisonous plant.
  • cow parnsip
    Umbels of cow parsnip, Heracleum Lanatum, in a meadow.