Can I tease Mary?

[digitS']

Well, let's see.

August 2, 2012 in Barrow, AK: Max 43F, Min 38F. It has been as warm as 68F on that date but also a 26F in 1945. There was 14 minutes of "night" on that date - the first sunset of the summer .

No, I'd say it would be pretty hard to grow much of anything. Radish. Some quick greens like lettuce & spinach. . . Maybe some grasses like rye and oats but not sweet corn, that's for sure! Most plants won't grow until the temperature is above 50F. But, you know that too, Mary. It is sometimes difficult to have ripe tomatoes and sweet corn on the NW coast.

Steve

 

[897tgigvib]

Nice big igloo, huge clear ice southern exposure window, a few premium colored led lights, dogs bed under the shelf for warmth, perfect for sprouts! Might even turn the heat pad on a few hours in the morning...Sprouts garden! VOYLA!

 

[digitS']

That should do it, Marshall! There is the need for getting a lot of the seeds in by dog sled. Just kidding!

Still, I was thinking that onions may have trouble making seed - for sprouts or otherwise. The radish will take nearly the whole growing season here to produce a nice lot of seed. One year, I forgot to sow the variety I wanted for seed until about the 1st of June. I was kind of sweating it by September. Surprising what a large plant some varieties of radish will insist on growing before setting seed.

This is a good location for seed, what with a dry late summer. One of the days in late July, 2012 back in Barrow: They had over a half inch of snow!!

Steve

 

[897tgigvib]

First thing I ever grew to seed were gourds, the small pepo kinds.
Next thing I grew to seed were Beans.
After that, Pumpkins.
Then Cosmos.
Then Zinnias.
And then Radishes.

The Radishes began as my oldest sister's project in my garden, and I grew them to seed for her. She gave the seed to her science teacher. On thinking, that would be 1967, when I turned 12. They were mixed varieties. Crimson Giant, Sparkler, French Breakfast, Cherry Belle, and White Icicle.

There were other things I grew to seed. Daffodil seed never sprouted for me. Minnesota Midget Melons seemed too small to want to eat. Aunt Eleanor showed me the swipethetomatoseedonyerpantsandsetitontheenvelopetodry method, but those tended to disappear before getting them into my sock drawer.

 

[digitS']

For those non-Westerners reading this thread, Marshall grew up with Charlie Brown, Lucy and the rest of the Peanuts gang. Anyway, I imagine that he did and I hope that's okay with Marshall. His hometown is around Charles Shultz country in Sebastopol. He isn't all that far from it today but has chosen a higher elevation. California is like that - lot's of differences because of elevation and coastline, as well.

Sebastopol, California isn't in the Ukraine. If it was, they'd probably be able to grow sweet corn better. Still that part of northern California is far enuf from the mighty Pacific, not too far north, and it isn't up in the hills. So, gardeners there can probably grow sweet corn just fine.

I'm bringing this back to sweet corn because I think there is a fair amount of misconception that the frontier was settled by a pioneer carrying a bag of corn seed. My argument is that there was a bag of seed involved but most often, it was a bag of wheat seed.

Following the pioneer farmer - closely - was the miller. Getting a flour mill close by was of great importance to the Euro-Americans so that they could turn over their cash crop to the miller, have it ground into flour and shipped back East to the city folks for their loaves of bread. Until the miller got there, about all the farmer could do was feed his wheat to his livestock.

Corn didn't have the wide adaptability of wheat. A longer season is required for it, more water, a better soil, too. It still needed to be processed into people food. By the way they were eating in the 20th century, I think it was very likely that my family was essentially living on potatoes out on the fringes of American civilization. Certainly, no sweet corn variety would produce a reliable ear of corn until Golden Bantam came along about 100 years ago - not here, anyway. Of course, one couldn't live on sweet corn no matter whether you had it for 2 weeks or 2 months out of the year.

Dad's family was coming from Tennessee, Oklahoma and New Mexico. I'm sure they could grow sweet corn but he talks about them boiling alfalfa greens as one of the first foods of spring. Oh my! Good thing if they still had some winter-stored potatoes!

I wonder how potatoes do under 24 hours of sun? They aren't going to stand up to any 26 on August 2nd but I've harvested potatoes before August here .

Steve
noticing that it is only -8 in Barrow this morning altho' it is a wonderful 77 in Tahiti!

 

[ninnymary]

Steve, couldn't the people of Barrow just get their seeds annually the way they get all of their other supplies. I imagine they wouldn't need that many and maybe a friend or family member could send it to them. That is if anything could grow there. They don't have to produce the seeds themselves. I just can't imagine not being able to grow anything. Wonder what the place looks like?

Mary

 

[897tgigvib]

Digit, actually I lived a half mile from Charles Schultz' Ice Arena. Yes, I was one of the kids that went there a whole lot. Now, the fancy rich kids started being able to take skating lessons. There were lessons for Ice Hockey, some unknown and mysterious speed skating lessons that were held we theorized in the middle of the night, and then there were the day and evening figure skating lessons in the center ring of the ice. Most of those were the fancy rich and pretty girls learning to do double axels and things like that. The rest of us were not accepted into the middle area.

Well, that had to be rectified! I began doing warmups wearing the sharpest figure skates. They obliged me with freshly sharpened skates. My warmups were laps, left to right crossovers as smooth and rhythmically as possible, (usually to a Beatles or other nice pop tune), backwards. My goal was to impress them enough to let me skate in the middle. After only a few weeks I began working my way into the middle ice.

Ha! The poor kid with dirt on his knees of his jeans in the middle ice, skating with, well, you guessed it, a lady name of Peggy who said for me to held my arms out farther and to land on the inner edge of the blade on my right foot, and make sure I keep my heel just barely up on the landing. Suddenly I was in like Flint! It was a half axel! There were kind of 2 Sparkies! One was the real Sparky who could do flips. Story was that he ice skated for the U.S. army during WWII in europe, and was a ski patrol expert during battles there of some kind. The other Sparky wore glasses and was, you guessed it, Charles Schultz himself. He'd come then disappear, but ya know, he went upstairs where he'd do his Peanuts strip sometimes.

During those days, and a few years later, our family took in a girl just older than my oldest sister, who was pregnant. She had her baby, and then as the baby grew, she fixed up a bicycle with the help of Andy's bike shop, and had a seat built for her little son. Sometimes I'd be on my bike and Georgia and her little son would be on her bike riding like that to the Ice Arena.

Ya know, amazingly enough, soon after we started going to the Ice Rink like that, there was a new character that showed up on the Peanuts strips, only for a short time, a little kid on the back of a bike. My mother was sure it was inspired by Georgia biking Forest around like that. Even looked like the same setup.

While skating there, there was almost always a strawberry blonde haired girl there named Patti. Years later Patti was in one of my college classes at the JC. She reintroduced herself to me, shaking my hand, saying she was Patti Schultz. I didn't know that! She was the one laughing at my crashes, but I did a single axel before she did. Course, when I did the land, my teeth were set in a grimace of determination, and my skate chunked ice. She did it all nice and smooth with a smile.

Digit, somehow you reminded me of my ice skating days. Now I want to get back into ice skating so much! Some of my best scars are from skating. Speed skating a race with my brother I had an awesome crash! The back of the blace jammed into my inner wrist. I stuffed the chunk of tissue back into the hole, and it took as it healed! I got a chip on the top of my right hip in an Axel crash. It healed up but I can still feel it, just barely. Another scar is from roller skating, right on my chin. That was outside coming down Hexem avenue.

 

[897tgigvib]

NinnyMary, I google mapped Point Barrow. Zoomed all the way in on Satellite view.

It looks like lots of snowy ice with some dirt patches. Right at the shore it showed some pack ice heaved up like ice dunes. I can tell that sat photo was a few years old. It showed ice extending over the ocean. I understand that is open ocean now and there are new shipping lanes through the arctic.

 

[digitS']

Marshall, my ice skating is all imaginary. Animated, of course . . .

Peppermint Patti may not be around to help you up so be careful on the ice is all I can say.

And, you never know what might be coming up behind you either:

Fortunately, another guy with a camera got this picture of me trying to get that shot of Barrow for Mary! Yeah, you can just see the landscape past middle ice!

Steve

 

[HunkieDorie23]

Steve, do you think anyone gardens in Barrow? Perhaps at least lettuce? I wonder how warm it ever gets there.

Mary

How about Iceberg lettuce.