Power in potatoes

PALMER — Historic land and machines are coming together to bring more potatoes to Palmer, both for educational and nutritional purposes. David Dahms bought property on Scott road 12 years ago. He’s seen all of his children graduate from Palmer High School. His long, skinny parcel of land used to be range for horses before the Bogard Road extension punched through. The road cut into his land by 75 feet and, without fencing, it was no longer suitable for horses. He wanted to do something with the fallow parcel of land he had between the small thicket of trees in the middle of his land and the road across from Palmer High School. Dahms got a hold of members of the antique power club who showed up to donate their time and tractors for a good cause: potatoes.

“I hated to see this land not used,” said Dahms. “The main thing is teaching the kids that potatoes come from the ground not the grocery store.”

The land was originally used for farming potatoes before Dahms bought the piece.

Today, Dahms and volunteers will plant donated potato starts on the roughly 1.25 acre piece that was plowed and tilled on May 23. Dahms plans to allow students from PHS, ACS, and other Palmer Schools to harvest and sell the potatoes free of charge. The excess will be picked and donated the Palmer Food Bank.

Mike Kerr, Mike Pollock and Dick Sloan brought out their tractors to start turning the soil at six or seven inches deep. The antique tractors and attachments are often used in parades or at the Alaska State Fair, but they like to help out the historic and resurgent farming community whenever possible.

Kerr sits on the board at the Alaska Transportation Museum. When he is not in board meetings to address issues, he likes to drive his John Deere.

“This is a John Deere 790 utility tractor. It’s the first tractor I bought and it’s my favorite.Since I’m retired and I have the tractor I get to do the little things,” said Kerr. “I’m a retired guy that has a tractor and how many reasons do I have to drive a tractor?

My aunt in Minnesota is a retired Kindergarten teacher and has been working with food for the needy. This is kind of on the same issue; it makes me feel close to her doing things like this.”

Most of these men have deep farming roots. Sloan grew up on a farm in Nebraska 50 years ago. He drives a 1953 Farmall Super C with a two-blade fourteen inch plow.

“It works great, it’s nice for when you have rectangular fields,” said Sloan.

As a member of the Antique Power Club, Sloan enjoys to help farmers in the area that need ground turned.

“It’s a day for us to get out and use our equipment and play in the dirt.” said Sloan. “I don’t like to see the old equipment go to the scrap yard.”

Sloan not only enjoys working the land as a volunteer, but using the old equipment he restores and uses as an educational means for students who don’t know about the farming history of the Valley.

Mike Pollock drove his wife’s 1955 International Harvester 300. He gave Dahms a history lesson on the tractor, explaining that it was the first of the number series in a 40-horse engine. In the early 1900’s there was not one tractor that would do everything a farmer needed, so in 1923 International Harvester invented the Farmall.

“It’s a chance to use our stuff and do something for the community and that’s it,” said Pollock.

Pollock’s father bought a tractor in 1942 when he was 18 years old that Pollock still owns and maintains to this day.

“Driving that tractor is like turning back the clock,” said Pollock.

The teamwork of power and potatoes will have potatoes to help feed and nourish the community when the Alaskan summer has met its end and it is time to harvest. Dahms is not the first landowner to have this idea, as he contacted the Power Club whilst they were turning land for Ed Erickson to serve the same purpose.

“What’s in it for me is seeing great land that used to be potato returned to that but actually helping the community through giving them away,” said Dahms.

“Ed Erickson and I are working on trying to buy a planter together, or to find one for this year and save and buy one for next year.”