Outdoors

The Forest Service is planning to build a slate of new recreation cabins in high-demand areas of the Chugach and Tongass national forests, the service announced last week.

Money for the project comes from the federal infrastructure bill, passed by Congress last year. The U.S. Department of Agriculture said it’s sending over $37 million to national forests so they can build up their infrastructure, like campgrounds and cabins.

Alaska will get about $14.4 million to repair existing cabins and build new ones throughout the state, said James King, the Forest Service’s director of recreation, land and minerals for the Alaska region.

“We know that cabins are very popular,” he said. “And we’re looking forward to putting cabins where demand exists.”

As it stands, the Forest Service has about 200 public use cabins in Alaska, spread between the Chugach and the Tongass.

The most popular of the 40 in the Chugach are accessible by trail and are often booked out months in advance. Many can only be accessed by plane or boat.

King said it’s not often the Forest Service gets to build new cabins.

“Simply because most of our cabins are put in remote locations,” he said. “So by the time shipping and helicoptering and all the transportation logistics are worked out, cabins are pretty expensive to put in location.”’

He said the Forest Service has a wishlist of 50 or so potential cabin locations.

“Over the years, we’ve conducted various public outreach opportunities where people have suggested ideas for new locations,” he said. “And we’ve kept track of those.”

King said he’s not sure exactly how many they’ll be building, since he said there are so many moving parts. But he’d love to tackle half of the 50 on the list.

Next month the Forest Service will hold listening sessions to narrow its list down. King said more information will be available on the Forest Service Region 10 website shortly about those sessions. King said he’d also like to involve local contractors in the building process, to boost local economies.

Dave Gregovich, Wildlife Habitat Analyst for the Department of Fish and Game, is a mushroom enthusiast on the hunt for winter chanterelles. He starts the search in a forest near the North Douglas highway, and looks for areas with hemlock trees and blueberries.

“It’s not a super specialized mushroom,” Gregovich said. “In most places where you have old growth forest, you have at least a few winter chanterelles.”

Edible mushrooms found in Southeast Alaska can be foraged throughout the fall and into early winter, but winter chanterelles have very distinct characteristics that make them especially easy to identify, especially for beginners.

“A lot of mushrooms have these really sharp blade-like gills on the underside of the cap. But winter chanterelles have these kind of ridges on the bottom of the cap.” Gregovich said. “And they are shaped like a funnel. They’ve got a hole in the top, and it funnels down to a hollow stem.”

Winter chanterelles are small, so it takes quite a few for a meal. And their texture can be pretty wet when you bring them home. But they are really good to eat, Gregovich said.

“What I like to do is put them under a fan for an hour or so, no heat,” he said. “And the other thing you can do is you can dry-sauté them. Before you add any oil or butter, put them in the pan just dry and let some of the water kind of evaporate from the mushrooms.”

In the temperate rainforest of Southeast Alaska, mushrooms almost always have plenty of moisture and good growing conditions in their environment.

“But one thing that is the case, you really don’t see most of these mushrooms until kind of the start of August, mid-August, and then they really start to pop.” Gregovich said. “A couple of species, including the winter chanterelle, can be around in November or even December.”

There are hundreds of species of mushrooms around Juneau. But Gregovich advises the average forager stick to the four that are easiest to identify: winter chanterelles, golden chanterelles, porcinis (aka King boletes), and chicken-of-the-woods.

“So you can just stick with those four kinds, and you can get out and find something that’s easy to identify and good to eat,” he said.

Early fall is a great time to dig up, divide, and transplant perennials. Plants can better adapt to new locations when the weather is cool and they are finished blooming.

At the Jensen-Olson Arboretum, horticulturist and manager Ginger Hudson demonstrated how to divide Japanese sedge, or Carex morrowii, that she found creeping into a walkway. She removed it from the ground using her preferred tool — a digging fork.

“If you use a shovel — that’s a big knife. You’re just going to cut a lot of roots,” Hudson said. “So a digging fork leaves as many roots intact as possible.”

Hudson used her fingers to loosen the large mass of soil, roots and greenery. At times she needed clippers to release the plants from each other, but she was careful not to cut away too much.

“You want a healthy mass of roots with the plants that you transplant,” she said. “You want large feeder roots, you want little thin hairy roots coming off those bigger roots.”

Some other perennials that can be divided this time of year are Primula florindae and Primula denticulata, popular varieties that grow well in Southeast Alaska.

“Because they like living here so well, they really reproduce well,” Hudson said. “They spread by plant clumps, which is vegetative. They also reseed themselves.”

Hudson says Juneau is renowned for being a great habitat for primulas, and the arboretum has a nationally recognized collection.

But they have thick, entangled root systems that take some patience to divide. Hudson works the clumps apart slowly with her fingers, then cuts away dead and damaged parts of the sections she separated.

“This year I have an extra step to add in, and that’s I’m going to be trimming foliage,” she said. “Because the slugs have really done a number on them, and they’re not pretty.”

Hudson says early fall is an ideal time of year to divide and transplant Primula florindae because their roots can get established before winter. Plus, primula are likely to lose their blooms if they are transplanted while flowering.

“The plant is then is going to spend energy trying to get reestablished trying to get its roots eating again. And so it’s not going to be able to feed the flowers,” she said.

At the Jensen-Olson Arboretum — a source of inspiration for gardeners of Southeast Alaska — late-season flowering perennials are in bloom.

“And one of our favorites is the Primula florindae, which blooms in mid-to-late summer and sometimes will go on until frost,” manager and horticulturist Ginger Hudson said. “They love the cool moist temperatures — they love to be cold over winter.”

Yellow is the standard color for Primula florindae flowers. But when planted alongside a primula of a different color, the flowers can bloom in a variety of shades.

“There are some oranges and they will cross with each other,” Hudson said, “So we have one that’s a kind of a mango color. And even one that’s a deeper mustard yellow.”

Not only does the Primula florindae bloom longer than other primula and attract pollinators, it’s also easy to propagate.

“This variety of primula spreads easily in the garden, Hudson said. “Not only by clumps expanding, but also seeds being carried away and washing away in our rains.”

Monarda, also known as bee balm, is another late-blooming perennial that produces copious amounts of flowers.

“We have two different kinds of bee balm growing here at the arboretum, a pink shade and a deep, deep fire-engine red shade,” Hudson said. “You want to plant them in the best sun possible to get the maximum amount of blooms.”

As the name suggests, bee balm attracts pollinators as well — primarily, bees.

“We have a lot of bumblebees here even in Southeast Alaska and they love these, as well as lots of other little flies and late season butterflies,” Hudson said. “But mostly you’ll see bumblebees.”

Phlox and hostas are two other perennials that are still in bloom this time of year, and Hudson says she’s even seen hummingbirds visiting the hosta flowers. While attracting pollinators, the flowers and foliage are also entertaining through the autumn.

“And makes you think, well, summer’s not really over because look at this big head of flowers that just keeps on going,” Hudson said.

Greenhouses expand the possibilities of what can be grown in cool, wet climates. Certain cucumber and tomato varieties do particularly well in Southeast Alaska.

Master gardener Ed Buyarski uses some of his greenhouse space to experiment with dry-weather crops, such as corn. While his corn is tall, it’s not quite maturing.

“The corn has reached the ceiling, but it’s gonna be a while before we get any of that,” he said.

The rest of the space is dedicated to tomatoes and cucumbers. Buyarski selects varieties that are adapted to growing in a greenhouse, such as the Manny cucumber.

“Manny, I’ve grown for two or three years now,” Buyarski said. “They’re tasty. They’re smooth-skinned slicing cucumbers — they’re considered a European-style cucumber.”

Inside the greenhouse, Buyarski has staked the cucumber plants to grow vertically instead of flat on the ground.

“Cucumbers tend to get mold and mildew on them pretty easily, unfortunately,” he said. “I’ve got them strung up in the hopes of getting good air circulation in between the plants.”

Sungold, Siberian, and Glacier are examples of tomato varieties that consistently produce good harvests. The plants were started indoors from seed in April and transferred to the greenhouse in mid-May. The green tomatoes just started to show colors in early August.

And for gardeners without greenhouses, it’s still possible to grow tomatoes in the rainforest.

“Fourth of July is a short-growing tomato, determinate tomato, which could be grown in good-sized hanging baskets or in pots.” Buyarski said.

Taking a propane torch to the rows between crops is a quick, easy solution to controlling weeds in the garden. But many weeds can be harvested and eaten.

Master gardener Ed Buyarski carefully burned away hundreds of tiny sprouts threatening his lettuce rows.

“Like we see between two lettuce, there’s about 50 chickweed plants, and it will steal the nutrients from them,” he said.

The torch eliminated hundreds of weedlings in a matter of minutes, along with any pests that may be in its path.

“Slugs should beware,” Buyarski said.

Other weeds can end up on the dinner table. Lambsquarters, for example, is a close relative to spinach that can be tossed into salad or lightly sautéed with olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

“You can even layer it in something like a casserole.” Buyarski said. “It’s very tender, very mild, and it’s terribly good for you. Not to mention, we’re eating the weeds, so you get extra points for that.”

Chickweed, if it escapes the torch, is also edible. It has a mild taste as well and is nutritious when eaten fresh.

“We can eat a lot of these weeds, and I try to,” Buyarksi said. And he introduces other people to them when he can. “Certainly, I subject friends to it, put in their salad.”