Annual Potato Patch Planting Includes Unique Spud

By Turnagain News Correspondent

Local families gather at the Forest Service office in Girdwood to plant this year’s community potato garden, which benefits the Girdwood Food Pantry. The garden is a collaboration between the Forest Service, Prince William Sound Stewardship Foundation, Girdwood Community Land Trust, and the Girdwood Food Pantry. Representatives of each group were on hand, along with an eager mob of local school kids who do the potato planting and harvesting each year. The garden yielded 70 pounds of potatoes last October for the food pantry, which serves residents of Indian, Bird, Girdwood, and Whittier. This year, the group added a new garden bed to increase the yield. Tim Lydon of the Forest Service is the lead gardener and says that each year’s yield is a mix of Yukon Gold, Purple Viking, and the unique Haida potato, which Indigenous people have grown on the Northwest Coast for hundreds of years.