On this edition of Ag Matters Radio Amy’s guest is Allie Barker of Chugach Farm in Chickaloon.
AUTHOR | Kerry Nelson
Hard work, contagious passion and pure grit only scrape the surface of Allie Barker’s character. She and her husband Jed own Chugach Farm, an off-grid commercially producing homestead twelve-hundred feet up a mountainside in Chickaloon. When host Amy Pettit first learned of what it took to run the unique operation, she suggested that Allie write a book about it. She’d make more money off of that than farming, after all. Allie was quick to respond – “I’m not into money Amy, that’s not my thing!”
Guiding Her Way To Growing Food
Allie got her first glimpse of Alaska on a ski mountaineering trip at age eighteen. She knew then that she had found her future home. After mountain guiding in the state for over a decade, Allie decided to study sustainable agriculture at Evergreen College in Washington. Falling in love with her studies, she stopped guiding to farm instead.
It seems inevitable that Allie’s path would lead her to growing food. Though she did not grow up on a traditional farm, her family grew their own food back in Amish country, Ohio. She recalls how her mother always had “way more tomatoes to put up than anyone could ever eat in an entire lifetime.”
She took to reading The Good Life: Helen and Scott Nearing’s Sixty Years of Self-Sufficient Living, peaking her interest in homesteading. So, she and Jed made that dream happen, carving out a homestead of their own on the mountain. The real connection to growing food began through a necessity to be self-sufficient. Soon they were not only growing for themselves, but for people in the community. The pieces fell into place, and Chugach Farm now enters its ninth year at Spenard Farmers Market in Anchorage.
Chugach Farm Beats To Its Own Systems
Chugach Farm is not what comes to mind when picturing a typical operation. Allie grows on about one acre rested between two eskers next to the glacier that used to run through Chickaloon. Limited horizontal space has prompted south-facing terraced beds, inspired by Fairbank’s Calypso Farm & Ecology Center.
You can see the evolution when you look at the farm. Allie and Jed have tried a little bit of everything through trial and error. They’ve spent almost ten years refining systems, sometimes building more than they can handle to manage. The farm is a closed system, and there’s not a lot they don’t do themselves. If a part of the system fails, it’s overwhelming. She enjoys it though, accepting “that’s life.”
Off-Grid Farming Requires Off-Grid Innovation
Farming is already challenging on the grid. Off-grid takes it to another level entirely. Everything is heated by wood. The winter is spent logging for firewood and building supplies. Wood ovens can be found everywhere; the main house, greenhouse, seedhouse, and sauna – even Allie has to relax sometimes.
A solar system runs the well pump, lights and outlets. It also runs the pump needed to run radiant heat under the greenhouse soil beds. The solar panel at the well allows for water to be pumped to the top of the hill above the terraced beds. Once there, it warms up and is then gravity-fed to all the different systems and zones of the terrace. DC pumps help the water along to feed the greenhouse and seedhouse. The final stop for the water lies at the lowest part of the land where a pond waits to catch it, saving it for backup if needed.
A Winter Paradise Of Picking Peppers
The greenhouse system that Allie has built allows her to actively grow from the beginning of March through December. She was inspired by farmer Ana Eddey, former college mate and author of Solviva: How to grow $500,000 on one acre, and Peace on Earth. She based the design for her greenhouse off of Eddey’s, who grew year round in Massachusetts with no additional heat.
Built like an earthship, the greenhouse sits two-thirds underground with a very insulated roof and triple polycarbonate south face. Even with the dwindling light of winter, radiant heat from the wood stove inside goes under the beds to keep the soil and plants warm. It can be twenty below zero outside and she’ll still be picking peppers. Her and Jed usually end up closing it down out of sheer exhaustion rather then an end in production.
Tunnels and hoop houses provide additional growing space. There’s even one on skis that gets moved to new soil each season. To help clear the land and improve soil health, Allie has used pigs for several years. She also employs duck mobiles and chicken tractors, using the birds to fertilize the soil.
The farm grows traditional crops that do well in Alaska such as carrots, beets, lots of cabbage, turnips and hardy greens like arugula, spinach, and mustards. They also grow onions, garlic, pumpkins and squashes. In warmer tunnels you’ll find the tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and a myriad of herbs.
The Key To Good Health Is Fermented
What Allie has really become known for though, is ferments. Fermentation is a big operation on the farm. With a root cellar for main food storage, preservation is essential for putting up crops all year. It’s also health driven for Allie. After realizing she was celiac, fermented foods became an essential part of her diet.
Fermenting preserves food while retaining all of its nutrition. The natural process changes lactic acid to good bacteria, feeding your gut microbes and improving gut bacteria. Allie has seen her health transform over the years of eating and drinking ferments.
Kombucha is a large part of her fermentation operation. She brews hers with black tea and organic sugar, striving for nutrients over sweetness. The combination creates the highest amount of glucuronic acid, similar to what our livers produce. The result is a detoxifying, nutritious drink. Some of her flavors include spruce tip, pepper, blueberry, cranberry, apple and sage. She makes a rotation of twenty different kinds, all using produce grown on the farm or harvested nearby.
You can find the delicious health tonics at the Spenard Farmers Market May through October, or by contacting Allie: chugachfarm@gmail.com. She also offers Alaska’s very first CSF – Community Supported Ferments. Working off of the same model as CSA (which the farm also offers), you pay upfront for eight months of ferments every other week. Each pick-up includes two different flavors that may include sauerkraut, kimchi, lacto pickles, kombucha, and kvass among others. Poke around on the Chugach Farm website or facebook to learn more!
Chugach Farm Harbors Future Author?
Though market season is still a month away, Allie gives us a glimpse into what she’ll have come first market. Expect to find mixed greens of arugula, spinach, tatsoi and mustard, turnips, radishes, vegetable starts, eggs, ferments, kombucha, and medicinal & herb vinegars.
While we anxiously wait to get our hands on the farm’s goodies, Allie waits for her parent’s old alpaca trailer. It will be turned into a commercial kitchen, allowing her to easily process more ferments for us. “Nothing is ever perfected,” she reflects, “it’s a work of art, an addiction to keep creating and evolving…there’s no blueprint for any of it” Maybe she’ll end up writing that book after all.