Farm fresh

THE BUTTE — While most are rejoicing the sunshine and calm weather, Mark Rempel and Sarah Bean would like a little more wind.

Rempel, the owner of Rempel Family Farms, said despite the nice weather of the past week, spring is coming late this year. He normally has plants in the ground by late April, but currently he is running out of room in his greenhouse.

“I’ve lived here all my life,” said Rempel, “and I can’t remember a year with so few days with wind blowing from the east off the Knik River.”

The sun is nice, he said, but it doesn’t dry the moisture like the wind does. Added to that, April was a very cool month, he said. He needs daytime temperatures above 50 degrees and nights above freezing.

“If it continues to be warm, then it can turn around,” said Rempel. “But really, we’re just getting caught up to where it ought to be.”

Sarah Bean of Arctic Organics agreed. While last year was a miserably late spring, the recent sunny weather has made this year about right, she said.

Bean encourages cautious realism against optimism when it comes to planting crops in the spring.

“We often get a little too eager this time of year,” Bean said, “and we get punished for it. We put the hardiest things out first, and try not to put all our eggs in one basket.”

Neither Bean nor Rempel have their main crops in the ground yet, but seeds are planted and seedlings are hardening off by getting used to the outside weather. The farmers will begin planting their starts early next week, and the rows should be full by the beginning of June.

The salad vegetables are the first crops ready, Bean said, and she already has some greenhouse-grown arugula at the market.

Arctic Organics and Rempel Family Farms are staples at the farmer’s markets in Anchorage, and both farmers agreed these are the main venue for their foods. Rempel takes his produce to the Northway Mall Market on Wednesdays and the South Anchorage Market at the Subway Sports Centre on Saturdays. Bean’s husband, River Bean, is the organizer of the Anchorage Farmer’s Market held on Saturdays at 15th Avenue and Cordova Street. The Beans also run a stand at their farm at 1305 N. Smith Road on Fridays from 5 to 7 p.m.

At either stand, shoppers know 100 percent of what they buy will be organic.

When Rempel took over his family’s farm in 1990, he continued the traditional method of spraying pesticides and fertilizers. His epiphany came when he was wearing his protective clothing and started to think about where those chemicals were going, he said.

“I don’t want to eat that, and I don’t want to feed that to my family,” he said.

Like Squanto — who helped the Pilgrims — planting two fish with the corn crop, he said, he now uses fish bone meal from Kodiak as fertilizer. He gets horse manure from a carriage company in Anchorage, and covers his plants to protect against bugs.

“Healthier plants have fewer problems,” Rempel said.

Bean agreed, and wonders how people do it without being organic.

“People are led to believe you need to do farming with chemicals,” she said. “But that creates all sorts of problems with infertility and resistant pests.”

Farming organically is more successful and easier because farmers do not constantly need to adjust their chemicals, Bean said. Her farm also uses fish bone meal and compost, and they cover their beds with plastic mulch that keeps the weeds out and acts as a collar against pest eggs.

By the end of the season, more than 100 varieties of vegetables will pass from farm to table from the two farms in the Butte, all organic, and all Alaska Grown.

Contact Todd L. Disher at todd.disher@frontiersman.com or (907) 352-2252.

AREA FARMERS MARKETS

Anchorage Downtown Market

3rd Ave. between C and E Streets

Saturday and Sunday

10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Anchorage Farmers Market

15th St. and Cordova St.

Saturday

9 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Eagle River Farmers Market

VFW Post Parking Lot

Tuesday

3 p.m. to 7 p.m.

Northway Mall Wednesday Market

3101 Penland Blvd. at the

Northway Mall

Anchorage

Wednesday

9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Palmer Friday Fling

Pavilion across from Visitor’s Center

Friday

11 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Saturday Market in Houston

Parks Highway, Mile 57.3

Saturday

10 a.m. to 7 p.m.

South Anchorage Farmers Market

Subway Sports Centre/Cellular One

Saturday

9 a.m. to 2 p.m.

South Anchorage Farmers Market

Behind Dimond Mall

Wednesday

10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Wasilla Farmers Market

Behind the library

Wednesday

11 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Willow Farmers Market

Community Center

Friday

2 p.m. to 7 p.m.