Dwane Ballou is giving me a tour of his family run small-scale farm, Oceanview Gardens. After the past six years, they are one of a few growers in Wrangell who supply the community with fresh produce and flowers. Our footsteps crunch under the gravel and ice crystals that settled on the ground. We’re looking at four of the farm’s grow tunnels, mostly with torn plastic hanging on the sides and no plastic on top. Dented and disjointed metal keep the structure of one tunnel standing. A couple months ago there was no wreckage, until the snow started falling.
“The one thing we will not grow this year, obviously, is corn on the cob, because you do need the height in there,” he said.
Besides the ground, Ice crystals are everywhere, on the structures and on plants. The property is right next to the ocean and shows all the mountainous islands scattered in the archipelago.
“Now the sun is just tall enough, it actually is reaching over the top of this mountain today” Ballou said. “It’ll get a little bit higher. And we start warming up here pretty quick.”
The plants, currently covered in frost and ice, will certainly benefit when the sun gets higher. Last month’s winter storms in Southeast Alaska damaged structures, including the four grow tunnels at Oceanview.
Ballou said he wasn’t around during the winter storm that damaged the tunnels. He and his wife, Laura, were on a trip in New Hampshire and they found out about the damage from a text message on Dec. 10. They returned a couple days later.
He said, “That small one over there, that one I was in the middle of building, and that one there — it crushed completely to the ground.”
He said there were three layers of ice on the structures, along with a lot of snow weight from the storm.
Insurance does not cover the damage
Since they’re considered temporary buildings, insurance does not cover the damage, which he said cost the company tens of thousands of dollars.
“It’s bad, but you evolve and move forward. It’s just a little bit of a setback,” Ballou said. “I think out of it, we will actually have nicer tunnels to work in, they will be taller, and we’ll move forward.”
Because of the damage, Ballou expects they’ll have a different growing year. He said many of the plants will be grown outside, and they’ll build much smaller hoop tunnels as they plant. That should protect and support them this season.
“Things might be a little later for everyone. We’ll see how things go,” he said. “But using the hoop tunnels, you can pretty much mimic the large tunnels. It’ll just be a little bit more work on our part.”
He’s not too worried since there’s still other tunnels and a heated greenhouse that’s holding strong.
“Let’s see if it’s frozen. Nope,” Ballou said as he opened the greenhouse door with some effort, ice crystals breaking off. “So this is our greenhouse that we used last year. None of the spring crops will be interrupted, the hanging baskets and all the trays of flowers and everything go in this one. And that one there, the materials will be here. In fact, they might already be here for that one, so that one’s going to be erected here in the next three or four weeks.”
Ballou said even with the damage, they’re expanding their business. They’ll have about 650 hanging baskets, vegetable starts and more than 200 trees and shrubs. Many Wrangellites look forward to the hanging baskets since a supplier down south stopped providing them.
He said, “It doesn’t seem like anyone else has really filled that gap, except for us.”
Oceanview Gardens plan to sell in neighboring Petersburg next season, too.
