Garden Fortress. All winter long John thinks about his garden. He considers it a battle between himself and Alaskan elements. First, John built a fence around his large garden to protect it against moose. The moose irreverantly leaned over the fence and ate an entire row of broccoli and cauliflower, waiting until it was nice and ripe. The following year John raised the fence and added an orange rope eye-level to moose that he had seen on other gardens and figured was there to frighten moose.

Next he added greenhouse plastic to the walls of the garden to protect against cold winds. This made the garden a virtual greenhouse. He started building the rows higher and higher in order to keep the soil warmer. You can see in this picture how high he now builds the rows. Both of these measures worked well.

His next battle was against chickweed, which is an especially insidious weed nearly impossible to be rid of. His first idea was to cover the entire floor of the garden with a black cloth that would suffocate the weeds. They only thrived under the heat of the blanket. The following year he spread grass clippings all over the garden. It turns out that the best way to control weeds is to pull them out by hand. Our children were dismayed when John realized this fact and decided that it would be their job. His new idea for this summer's battle against chickweed is to buy baby ducks and let them loose in the garden, where they will gobble up all the weeds. For the record, I think this will backfire and they will eat our veggies.

The garden is now ready for planting. But our last snow was a week ago, so when we put the plants in the ground, we will cover them with a special white blanket that protects the plants from frost. Gardening in the Alaska. Not for the casual gardener. The only real advantage is our everlasting sunlight.