Gardening in Alaska : We missed you!

Talk Dirt To Me

Do you love to make mud pies, grow a houseplant, eat veggies, or stop to smell the bouquet on your co-workers desk? Everyone enjoys a bit of green growing around him or her and then there are those that are passionate and needy when it comes to dabbling in the dirt. With this blog, we'll try to satisfy those needs and tell you about what's going on with the Anchorage gardening scene. You know, as I finally learned, it's all about the dirt.

Photographer and gardener Fran Durner (fdurner@adn.com) writes the blog.

Interactive Map

2008 Anchorage garden tour

Take an interactive tour of the gardens showing in Anchorage's garden tour, with photos and audio commentary from each gardener.

We missed you!

Posted by talkdirt

Posted: October 12, 2008 - 5:25 pm

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Free seeds could have been yours if you had been at the seed exchange in Palmer on Saturday. Fran Durner PhotoPerhaps it was the lack of a seed producing summer. Or perhaps you wanted to take advantage of the last of the warmish, dryish, fall days to really get your garden in order. But, you missed out on a truly wonderful exerience on Saturday by not taking the easy drive to downtown Palmer for the Valley garden clubs seed exchange and lunch at the Red Beet Cafe.

Only Nickel LaFleur, Susan Miller and myself came from Anchorage (Susan has a fine shop, The Garden Gate, next to the Red Beet) and Randi Perlman came from Big Lake with seeds from the North Root Big Lake Garden Club. That was it!

Valley Dirt Diva Brooke Heppinstall was there with seeds as well though she had been lassoed into kitchen and dining duties by Beet owner Sally Koppenberg and hardly had time to pop out and visit with us.

Randi Perlman lays out seed packets from the North Root Big Lake Gardeners. Fran Durner photo. Seed packets were laid out on tables in a side room. I brought seeds from chocolate lily, red double poppy, "Lauren's Grape" poppy, variegated leaf blue columbine, heirloom pinwheel marigold and orange lily bulbs. And I went home with seeds of blue alpine clematis, white verbascum (unknown variety) and some lettuce seed packets.

Randi brought a trayful of seeds neatly packed and labelled in small brown envelopes. There were lots of different columbines, sedum, primroses, centaurea, shoe-fly and amaranthus, to name just a few of the seeds available. See what you missed!

A handmade chocolate truffle at the Red Beet Cafe. Fran Durner photo.The best part though, besides getting to visit with gardeners, was indulging in Sally's cooking. It felt like an indulgence because we started out with an amuse bouche of a handmade chocolate truffle dusted with spices and a pinch of cayenne pepper - melty heaven ignited with a tiny hell spark that lingered on your tongue. What better way to get your mouth juices flowing than with a spicy dessert!

To read a review of the Red Beet Cafe food click here.

A salad of fresh picked vegetables topped with a tasty dressing. Fran Durner photo.That was followed by a satisfying salad of julienned cabbage topped with cooked purple and pink-eyed potatoes, sweet onions and thick chunks of bacon and a dressing of date-yogurt dressing. It was so delicious we asked Sally when she would begin to bottle her dressings and convinced her to sell us some before we left.

This soup had everything - flavor, texture and warmth. Fran Durner photo.After the salad, a soup of garden vegetables and beans, topped with sour cream and crunchy slices of cucumber was served with thick slices of parsley bread and butter. Yum, yum. And then - more dessert!

Ahhh, dessert! Fran Durner photo.Puff pastry with marionberry preserves and whipped cream were included in the gardener's lunch. Sally advised us to just pick it up and dip it in the cream and not even try to use a fork. Who doesn't like to eat with their fingers?

Red Beet Cafe owner and chef Sally Koppenberg talks with gardeners Randi Perlman of Big Lake, left and Susan Miller of Anchorage, right at the Cafe during the seed exchange lunch on Saturday, October 11, 2008. Fran Durner photo.To top it all off, we had to visit the bakery upstairs to bring home loaves of fresh baked carrot and spinach bread, and for me - four more truffles. What better way to start the winter.....