Bobberman
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Greenhouses in Alaska how good are they?

I watch the Buying Alaska program and I seem to see a lot of greenhouses there. With the light almost dark for months how does the greenhouse work so well! . I was really surprised to hear that Alaska has 3 million lakes can you imagined how big it is! What would be the main crop in the Alaska greenhouses? I assume that the greenhouses are all heated!

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applestar
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I suspect they use their greenhouses during the "summer" or more precisely when they have those very very long days.... Like sun high up in the sky at 10PM in late May, etc. but snowing every so often still.

During their growing season, the long days help them to grow amazing crops.

They do have a lot of lakes, and every lake had "marinas" of small airplanes with floats to land and take off on the water.

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In a Tough Place to Farm, Discovering Much to Love
Alaska Turns to Locally Grown Food Thanks to State Incentives

By KIRK JOHNSONAUG. 31, 2014

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Kathy MacDonald, left, buying produce from Hillary King at a farmers' market in Fairbanks, Alaska. Credit Erin Corneliussen for The New York Times



FAIRBANKS, Alaska — The glorious taste of a late-summer tomato, fresh off the vine, is a chin-dripping wonder for many Americans. Except, as many gardeners might assume, up here.

In Fairbanks, just 200 miles from the Arctic Circle, frost can continue into June, while summer surrenders as early as mid-August. A long growing season it is not. On the federal Department of Agriculture’s plant hardiness map, a blue smear across interior Alaska shows where the brutal winters, with their 60-degree-below-zero temperatures, make it difficult for anything but the toughest plants, and people, to survive. Partly as a result, Alaska imports about 95 percent of its food, state officials say.

But advocates for local food are now pushing back against the widespread notion that eating food grown or raised in Alaska is impossible or too expensive. Boosted by a state program that is helping school districts buy local products, and food stamp incentives that are luring low-income shoppers to farmers’ markets, locavore warriors are teaching small farmers how to reach the public, and consumers how and where to buy. (In Alaska, local can also mean wild, as in moose or seal meat.)
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ne consultant on food issues, Ken Meter, likened the effort to matchmaking.

There is, for instance, only one tortilla chip manufacturer in Alaska, said Mr. Meter, who is finishing a report for the Alaska Food Policy Council, a coalition of government and private groups. But recently, the manufacturer took an interest in Alaskan salmon, Mr. Meter said, and the product of the culinary marriage, the salmon tamale, is now being shipped to schools across the state.
Continue reading the main story
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A church group from Bristol, Tenn., dined there, but some neighbors have been reluctant to try it.
Local Food Has Been No Easy Sell in AppalachiaJULY 26, 2011

Many people in the new wave of local farmers and eaters say the short growing calendar and gardening-zone limitations can be misleading. With more than 22 hours of sunlight on the longest days of June, gardens in the far north can explode like gawky teens, sending out shoots, flowers and fruits in a compressed and frenzied summer cycle. Cruciferous vegetables, like cabbage and cauliflower, can get as big as basketballs.
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They, in Alaska, seem to grow many things and grow them well, and greenhouses are a big help.

Richard

Bobberman
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Since there is some light all winter does the light give heat to a greenhouse? I guess there is no complete darkness even in winter!



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