Community garden at the Ester library

For the last two years, an informal community garden has been functioning at the JTEL's Clausen Cabin, in part to help preserve Ida Clausen's gardening legacy, passed on by Lynn and Ray Kulp (formidable gardeners themselves), and in part to provide an option for JTEL members and residents of Ester who had unfavorable gardening locations (or none!). The JTEL has provided information on running a community garden, seed starting and saving, gardening books, tools, seeds, and a few flower and vegetable beds. So far, it has worked. The only requirement has been that those who take advantage of a bed or the other options also help care for the rest of the yard (i.e., show up for the garden work parties or water the flower pots on the porch if they seem to need it, mow the lawn).

Diagram showing major garden beds around the Clausen Cabin. 

Reservations are taken for the major beds starting in March. The JTEL recommends contacting Calypso Farm & Ecology Center for information on gardening best practices. While no formal community garden has been organized, the JTEL is open to options. If you have some ideas about this, send us an e-mail at board at esterlibrary.org. Thanks!

Happenings at the Clausen Cabin in April

The first week and a half in April at the Clausen Cabin will be a bit busy! We've got Easter Sunday coming up on the 5th, and the Ester Community Association is as usual sponsoring its annual Easter Egg Hunt. Decorated eggs will be hidden throughout the village, including on the library grounds. At the Golden Eagle Saloon, there will be the traditional Deviled Eggs, among other edible goodies prepared in excess for the weekend's musicians and audience.

The next week is the library's seed swap! Just bring any heirloom or open-pollinated seeds you  would like to trade, and come by between 1 and 4 pm to the Clausen Cabin at 3629 Main Street, Ester. Come chat with your fellow seed and garden enthusiasts! Take free gardening literature! Learn about seed saving and seed stewardship networks.

We're only holding one Seedy Saturday this year, and although it's a bit late in the season, Kurt Wold of Pingo Farm assures us that it's not yet too late for trading seeds. He'll be there to provide advice (and hand out catalogs). The JTEL seed library has plenty of seeds, from flowers to vegetables to grains, and you can sign up as a member of the library or just trade with your neighbors.

There's loads of fun at your community library, and this summer will be even better. Come join us!

Seedy volunteers wanted!

It's the beginning of February, and that's not too soon to think of mud and sprouting seeds! The Master Gardeners had a seed swap last week, so it's time to start thinking about getting the seed library's organized for this year. Unfortunately, the director of the GEB program will be out of town for the middle to latter end of February, and won't be able to schedule any then.

But wait, all is not lost! You, too can volunteer to organize a seed swap! It's easy, it's fun, and best of all, you end up with lots of seeds! The JTEL can provide the space a (it will need to be organized and overseen by a library member), or you can do it in your neck of the woods. Instructions are here. Different groups do it differently, and the JTEL has references that describe other methods. We've focused on one of the simplest.

Please contact the GEB director, Deirdre Helfferich, before February 15, at 479-3368.

Save seeds from your favorite tomato!

The Growing Ester's Biodiversity program is pleased to present for the second year a free workshop on saving seeds from tomatoes and other pulpy fruits. Many such fruits require a period of fermentation to remove the projective coating that prevents germination, while others, such as tomatillos, do not.

Aurora Siberian tomatoes grown in Ester, 2014. Photo and garden by Deirdre Helfferich, GEB director.

This year, as in our first year of conducting the workshop, we have the good fortune to have local grower and seedsman Kurt Wold of Pingo Farm / Zone 1 Grown in attendance; Wold has been finding tomato and pepper varieties that do well in our climate and offering them in his catalog. He is the only seed grower for vegetable seeds in the state. He is also a certified potato grower. Wold is the organizer of the Great Alaska Turnip Breeding Project, in which local gardeners grow turnips and harvest the seed or report on the results, with an eye to developing a tasty, tender, large, root-maggot-resistant turnip for the Interior. Wold will talk about the project and bring bouquets of lettuce and carrot flowers.

The workshop details:

• location: John Trigg Ester Library Clausen Cabin, 3629 Main Street
• time/date: 4 pm, Saturday, September 27, 2014
• bring: heirloom/open-pollinated tomatoes, cucumbers, or tomatillos, a sharp knife, a jar and lid for each variety you'd like to save, towels, and a cutting board or plate

We'll provide labels, pens, informational handouts, and some extra jars if people run out. We will also have samples from our seed library. Bring extra tomatoes and we'll have a tomato tasting!

Happenings at the Clausen Cabin this month

Things have been amazingly busy at Ida and Ansgar's old cabin this month! We are converting it from a house to an actual library for children. Before we started work, we asked Ansgar's nephew, Edmund, what he thought about it, and here's what he wrote:

I’m sure that both Ansgar and Ida would be happy about the transition; Ida would be proud and Ansgar would be bemused to think that the site of so much good living and good drinking was now a children’s library. My, how times do change.…

I like the idea of opening up the inside space. Take out the walls and the bedroom closet and there should be plenty of space for tables and shelves. An office back where the heater is would indeed be small but it could work. Just remember to leave space on the windowsill to start your tomatoes in the spring.

 Many folks have been pitching in to help: Hans Mölders especially, but also Eric Glos, Shayne and Chantz Turner, and Deirdre Helfferich. Please thank them when you see them!

We could use some more carpentry and electrical help now, particularly some advice on how to deal with the log beams and distributing the weight. Call Hans at 687-6666 for more information.

On Saturday, April 26, two new volunteers showed up to the Spring Seed Library Cleaning. Callen Christiansen and Sol Traverso are interested in vertical gardening, and are going to set up a vertical bed on the back porch of the cabin, where it gets intense sunshine, and adopt a bed in the regular garden and help clean it up (plus, they'll get to grow vegetables there!). With Carla and Deirdre Helfferich, the seed library got moved off the sink and the seeds organized, and everybody had blueberry pie. Nancy Burnham, former board member, stopped in to pick up a few squash seeds, too.

Remember: if you are a library member, you can check seeds out from the seed library (just save some from your harvest at the end of the season and bring them back to us) or pick up trade seeds. We also have seed catalogs you can peruse, including local seed grower Zone 1 Grown/Pingo Farm.

Volunteering opportunity: seed library assistant

Wanted: Seed Library Assistant 
(volunteer, part-time: 4 hours per week) 

The Growing Ester's Biodiversity program is looking for a dedicated volunteer interested in improving food security, democracy, and sovereignty in the Interior and Alaska through preserving and increasing agrobiodiversity.

Duties include: assistance in maintaining and organizing collections, publicity for GEB program events, online database updates, working with other organizations both local and statewide to foster other seed libraries and seed exchanges and to create a state seed library network, and to help maintain higher profile in northern and other seed library networks to take advantage of help and useful information. 

The volunteer will work with the GEB program director to plan and conduct workshops and create handouts and other information as needed.

Contact: geb@esterlibrary.org

Bryce Wrigley on starting a new business in agriculture

Wednesday's library lecture will feature Bryce Wrigley, a dynamic speaker and enthusiastic supporter of a strong local food network. His topic will be on the lessons he learned in starting his flour mill, the Alaska Flour Company. As usual, the talk will be at Hartung Hall at 7 pm. Parking will be available at the hall and at the library's Clausen Cabin (3629 Main Street).

Wrigley will also be speaking on campus earlier in the day on creating a local food system.

More on seed swaps and seed libraries in Alaska

The seed library craze has finally hit the 49th state! One aim of the JTEL seed library program has been to inspire other, similar programs in Alaska by setting an example. This year seems to be the year that seed swaps and seed libraries are blossoming:

• with an article in The Ruralite about seed librarians, a University Park Elementary School librarian, Carol Smallwood, has become inspired. U Park has a small school garden that Calypso Farm & Ecology Center helped them set up, so this school is already involved with growing things for educational activities.
• The Dillingham Public Library recently started a do-it-yourself seed package swap on their bulletin board. A local gardening club has a seedling swap that got going last year and proved very popular, and now is working with the library to coordinate their events.
• Saskia Esslinger has begun work on a seed library and a seed swap with the Anchorage branch of the Cooperative Extension.

We hope this is just the beginning. Our check-out program just began this year, so with the book and film collection on biodiversity, seed swaps, talks by local experts, workshops, and now the benefit of seeds available (just like books) to our membership, the Growing Ester's Biodiversity program is slowly fulfilling its mission.

If you would like to start a seed library in your area and have questions, or want to volunteer for the JTEL's GEB program, contact Deirdre Helfferich at geb@esterlibrary.org or 474-6923 (daytime work) or 479-3368 (home) or the JTEL, at 374-8080. 

Thank you!

Seedstock, seed catalogs and seed swaps

It may not be spring yet (even though the pussy willows are a bit confused), but the warm weather and the seed catalogs in the mail remind us that spring is coming soon! This year, the Growing Ester's Biodiversity program is hosting a new event at the John Trigg Ester Library: the Library Seedstock.

Seedstock is a special event to stock the seed library with locally grown, heirloom and open-pollinated cultivars. We are looking for flowers, vegetables, fruits, and grains.

Anyone may donate seeds, but seed stewards check out seed from the JTEL to grow it out to raise and save seed again, and are members of the library. After the harvest, seed stewards bring back about ten to twenty times the amount of seed they checked out from the plants they've grown, thereby replenishing and growing the library's holdings, and sharing those seeds with other members of the library.

That close relationship between you, the library's stewards of its genetic material, and your fellow members, is one that builds community and preserves valuable and increasingly rare  agrobiodiversity. To become a seed steward, simply sign up for membership at Seedstock and fill out a form indicating which seeds you've checked out, just like you would a book. Membership is only $10 per year, and not only do you join a committed group of enthusiastic gardeners, you can also check out anything else in the library!

This year will be the first Seedstock, but will be the third year the JTEL has held Seedy Saturdays.

Seedy Saturdays are straightforward seed swaps: bring seeds, share them with your neighbors. We'll provide some containers and envelopes, pens, and a way to organize the plants (by botanical family, with signs). Please see our seedswap guidelines on our website.

All events are free, but we do incur some costs, so donations are encouraged, and gratefully accepted.

Come join us!

Seedstock
John Trigg Ester Library
Clausen Cabin, 3629 Main Street, Ester (across from the Golden Eagle Saloon)
February 2, Sunday, noon to 3 pm

Seedy Saturday #1
Hartung Hall, Main Street & Ester Loop (one block east of the Golden Eagle's parking lot)
February 15, Saturday, noon to 3 pm

Seedy Saturday #2
Hartung Hall, Main Street & Ester Loop
February 22, Saturday, noon to 3 pm

Seedy Saturday #3
Hartung Hall, Main Street & Ester Loop
March 1, Saturday, noon to 3 pm

Parking for all events is available nearby with special permission for the event from Alaska Visit, as well as a limited amount at Hartung Hall and the Clausen Cabin. We'll have ushers to help you find a spot.

Seedy Saturdays!

The Growing Ester's Biodiversity Program (GEB) is pleased to present the 2013 Seedy Saturday Series!

These fun educational seed-trading events will be held every other Saturday starting February 2nd at Hartung Hall in Ester. (directions to the hall) Parking is at the nearby Ester Village Square, opposite the Golden Eagle Saloon and the John Trigg Ester Library, down the street. Bring the whole family!

Seedy Saturday is a seed swap designed to encourage local agricultural biodiversity, where participants trade seeds of heirloom varieties and seeds gardeners have saved themselves.

Rules:

Come at 1 pm and place your seeds at the appropriate plant family table by 2 pm. Trading begins 2 pm sharp and ends at 4 pm. Participants must have their items out of the hall by 4:30.

No seed sales, please. Local seed sellers and farmers are encouraged to provide literature for seed swap participants to take away, however.

At the end of the swap, participants who brought seeds may either leave their remaining seeds to donate to the GEB program's seed library or take them away, as they wish.

Dates:

Feb. 2: 1-2 setup, 2-4 trading, 4-4:30 cleanup
Feb. 16
March 2


The GEB program will provide some seeds, containers, and labels. Also, a few seed-saving informational brochures will be available for donation. Signup lists for the GEB program e-newsletter and information on John Trigg Ester Library membership will also be available.

May lecture: cultivating biodiversity

Ester Library Lecture: Cultivating Biodiversity in a Farm Ecosystem 

Susan Willsrud, co-founder of Calypso Farm & Ecology Center, is the next speaker featured in the 2012 John Trigg Ester Library Lecture Series, on Wednesday evening, May 16, 7 pm at Hartung Hall.

Christmas lima beans, Phaeseolus lunatus, Wikimedia file, CC Share Alike. Beans are among the many examples of agricultural biodiversity.

She will talk about biodiversity from the soil up, how Calypso and like-minded farmers work on cultivating agrobiodiversity, and how it informs her farming practices.

The lectures are held monthly. Upcoming speakers this year include plant ecologist Trish Wurtz (June); sociologist Sine Anahita (July); organic farmer Mike Emers (August); seed librarian Deirdre Helfferich (September); and glaciologist Matt Nolan (October). For more information on the library, its lecture series, volunteering or donations, or events, please e-mail info@esterlibrary.org or see the website at www.esterlibrary.org.