Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Alaska What do Alaskans do about vegetables?

I know vegetables grow in Alaska. But what do people do each year to have them to eat in the winter. I can only eat just so many meals of nothing but meat. I like sides to go with the meat.

We do have grocery stores.

I don't know about Alaskan's, but we can them here in NC.

Some, like winter squash, we just store in the pantry...

I grow beets and t-mater's, carrots and taters.... can what's extra.…oh yea carrots to !

Grains which have been converted to alcohol. Keeps well and won't freeze

Sauerkraut! Huge cabbage...

You can dry almost all the available veggies. They reconstitute with water when you're cooking. I don't recommend them for a salad though. Then there is always seaweed.

And the seaweed is better with herring eggs on it.

Run to the store and buy mesican produce that has been gas ripened; or eat a cardboard box as it tastes the same.

How does this shake out with the aforementioned fermented grain?

Canned and frozen vegys are easy and for the fresh, cruncy taste it is no problem to keep sprouts of all sorts growing during the winter months.
And during the darkest winter monts caribou stomach contents are not all that bad -- if you don't mind the taste.

You can reconstitute caribou droping by putting them in boiling water, almost as good as fresh stomach contents.

I don't think thats legal in unit 23 because the caribou are on the endangered species list

Catsup is a veggie ain't it?....put a little on your moose burger.

Just curious the vegetables seem to be quite expensive. But then again I am used to home grown. Even Ketchup is costly.

If you leave the stomach contents in the actual stomach, it's something like an Alaskan pasty.

You'll be wanting some of that grain, too.

The high price of Ketchup keeps out the riffraff.

You can I'll stick with the warm fresh stuff with a little of the bile drizzled over it .

Why caribou? I thought Moose was better and there would be more of it.

Geezus have you ever seen what a moose eats?

No thanks caribou innards every time

I lichen caribou stomachs better'n moose, too.

Art's been eating at Bean's Cafe again!

Beans give me gas!

I dunno about moose guts, but I did shoot a bou once, that was way way off, impossible shot according to some.... anyway it took us over an hour and a half to make it up to him... he was a tad bloated, even though it was under 32 at the time....or maybe just over, but cool.

I made one slip wiht the knife... and was covered in something, that to this day, I can still smell in those bibs, and that was circa 2003 IIRC and YES, they've been washed a number of times......

Not sure after that I can deal with eating innards of bou... or probably moose...

Shot a caribou bull one that ran into a lake and died. He floated like a cork. I had always heard the hollow hair caused that. After gutting the carcass sank like a stone! the guts floated...

Pretty obvious the hollow hair is mostly out of the water where it does no good for floating.

But a caribou's stomach is huge... has to hold those lichens a long time to wring any goodie out of them.

A friend shot one in shallow water once.... and I kept saying aim low he is closer than you think.. broke his back... walked up and shot him in the heart with my 44 mag. He sure didn't float but then he wasn't in the water all that long until we cut enough alder down to drag him onto the bank....

I suspect had he maybe either been deeper or possibly dead a bit longer he would have started to float.

My dog finds frozen moose nuggets almost irresistible. Maybe she knows something we don't.

"caribou stomach contents are not all that bad -- if you don't mind the taste."

Sounds like my cooking.

She most likely does --- but lets not go there

evah-damn-body got one o'them stories!

But only a couple are true...

Cabbage is moose bait, no?

Damn mooses like broccoli a hell of a lot better than most people do too. More than one year I'd give my broccoli and cabbage "just one more day to be perfect" only to find that a moose had already found them the next morning.

Mine wasn't so big a deal to me. 802. But I came well practiced and it was an easy shot. Twice.

Has to be a few true ones so it may as well be yours!

LOL< at least it was coached and witnessed by one of my old 4H competition small bore shooters thats become a resident of your fine state.

Recently he said he had a retired sniper in that finally( IE only other client he has had since that day) made a shot almost as far.

Today, I'm so far out of practice that 400 would be a stretch.

Redneck hay bale greenhouse unreal spring beans 12" tall. Raspberries blooming already Strawberries already more than a month early. Built fences to keep moose out.

Don't they have dirt to grow things in?

Removed the trees ground is full of roots topsoil hard to come by in Eagle River.

Good solution as hay breaks down produces heat, ground temps prevent early planting.

Google hay bale garden first time for me and I kind of like it.

Never seen one of those, looks cool.

Lucky our future holds an old horse corral in it, should provide some room without mice issues(plural for moose right... LOL)

Grow what u can, can them pack the rest in your cellar and buy what you can afford

Great summer here is the latest on hay bale garden.

It’s gathering time again!



Salmonberries are on... a bit early this summer. (With enough vitamin C to make an orange blush we are told.)

Single berry on the end of the main stem? Not a bush with multiple berries? That is what it looks like from the photo and it is the more common northerly berry. If so, that is a cloudberry.

They are better than most salmonberries.

‘Cloudberry’ sounds so...............DSMF? I realize that is another name for them, kind of like Washington tells us that ‘Eskimo’ is not a PC term that should be used anymore, but nobody ever uses that name and most folks who pick them by the gallon don’t even know the term ‘cloudberry’. (And why should they not be salmonberries? There is no other berry that so much resembles a cluster of salmon eggs that I am aware of.)

Next, I suppose you’re going to tell me our ‘blackberries’ are ‘crowberries’ or some such? (BTW, what are crows anyway? Can a raven be killed legally if we call them crows? )



Took one elderly lady along last night to a little, well-known berry island 13 miles offshore last night, along with family and other friends. It was the first time for her in her 7 decades of life. Got back just before 2:00 AM; (no wonder it was looking like it wanted to get dark when we got back. ) I doubt our family will make a 10 gallon goal, but we’ve got over 5 now.

Cloudberries and salmonberries are not the same. They taste different and come from different bushes entirely. I was corrected by an elderly lady way back in the '70s. I am not sure which village she was from... but well north.

Two different berries, same family, same colloquial name. Call them cloudberries in any rural area I am familiar with and you’ll get that “you must be a DSMF” look - or they’ll simply have no idea what you’re talking about. Cloudberry is not a name often used in Alaska and is probably best known to urban dwellers, if even them. You can call them whatever you like, but they’re known as salmonberries all over the western tundra.

Now, let’s talk about blackberry akutaq. (Yeah, I thought I was smart one time in pointing out that tundra blackberries - crowberries to some- are not even related to the rosacea family version. )

Yup, many do not know rasp/black/salmon-berries are roses...

and many do not know the facts about deer eating roses...

You two are a huge sources of useless knowledge. LOL. ( I hope you see the smiley intent there...)

I’m fine with useless, just don’t call me Ulysses ......

I must make one more comment about our berries; our’s, in fact, are superior if you believe heterosexual foods are ‘more better’. Those other kind, the bush variety, they’re kind of into bisexual stuff.



As for other ‘vegetables’ out in the boonies, ask some of the older people about plants and you’ll likely get a whole encyclopedia of info about which plants, when, and how to procure and process them. Readily available potatoes, carrots, apples, onions, and a few other things in many local stores - if you’re willing to pay the prices- has made gathering a ‘lesser’ activity for many of the younger generations.

Thats cool. Just shredded on by gallons and gallons of grapes today again. Makes me wonder if life would ever slow enough to be able to use whats out there.

In the meantime the deer love the grapes anyway.

Do what every pothead does. An indoor grow room. Hydroponic or raised beds, heated concrete floor, skylights or LED grow lights on a timer to conserve electricity and some fertilizer. Basically a modified green house for Alaska.