A Summer's Worth of Organic Veggies

December 2005 - Fairbanks, Alaska

For years the Creeds have planted flowers and veggies at their summer digs in Fairbanks but never planted a full-bore, family-sized vegetable garden.

"The timing never worked," said John. "With about two-and-a-half months in Fairbanks, there is little time to prepare or harvest a garden."

In 2005, the family joined a national trend called "community-supported agriculture," or CSA. For a one-time summer free, the Creeds joined Rosie Creek Farm with about 70 other CSA shareholders. Once a week the farm brings a supply of freshly picked, organically grown vegetables to shareholders, who pick up their bounties at two alternate locations in Fairbanks.

"We picked up our veggies at Beaver Sports, just down the street from our Fairbanks cabins," said John, adding that Rosie Creek and other interior Alaska organic farmers represent "a true pioneering effort."

"Farming so far north is a real challenge," he said. "The growing season is incredibly short, the ground is so cold because beneath the surface lies permafrost, and the overabundance of sun day-and-night often causes draught conditions in June, when rain is needed in the Interior for farming and gardening."

Rosie Creek Farm's literature explains the CSA program: "Produce will vary throughout the season. Early in the summer may contain greens, radishes, scallions, lettuce and early broccoli. By mid-summer we are harvesting peas, beets, summer squash, and cauliflower. By the end of August we will have carrots, new potatoes, onions, pumpkins, garlic and winter squash."

Organic farming improves both soil and crops without dangerous chemical fertilizers and pesticides, which can seriously deplete soil and air quality while endangering humans, water supplies, wildlife, and the environment in general. Unlike organic farming, chemical farming threatens environmental quality worldwide.

Even though the Creed family was feeding two adults and four growing children, the abundance of weekly vegetables created a real challenge to finish them all before the next weekly installment.

"We felt fantastic all summer eating fresh, organic vegetables direct from the farm," said Susan.

"Really, they made you feel as if you could fly you felt so good. This was a welcome change from the sometimes paltry produce we must endure each winter in Kotzebue."

As usual, the Creeds returned to Kotzebue before interior Alaska's harvest season ended, but the Rosie Creek Farm proprietors, Mike Emers and Joan Horning (who's also a UAF faculty colleague in the School of Education), were kind enough to fill a couple coolers to bring home to Kotzebue with such things as potatoes, onions, carrots, turnips, and winter squash.

"We had a little trouble getting through the turnips, since the kids weren't too fond of them, but the winter squash added a wonderful complement to 2005's Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners," said Susan.

Mike Emers told the Fairbanks Daily New-Miner after becoming certified organic famers in mid-July 2005 that he and his wife grow organically because it's right for their own health, for that of their customers, and for the environment.

"Becoming certified helps bring that ethic into the mainstream and hopefully is helping to dispel myths that organic agriculture is a fringe endeavor, and organic produce means that it's dirty or unclean," Emers said. "It is healthy food."

The Creeds took the annual shareholders' tour of Rosie Creek Farm, located about 20 miles south of Fairbanks outside Ester, last summer.

"These folks work hard at their livelihood," said John. "They are experimenting with all kinds of organic growing methods and vegetables and flowers. We wish them and all the other CSA projects in Alaska continued success. It helps humans and the earth stay healthy at the same time."