Alaska Seeds 2026 Growing Season
A Different Kind of Growing Year and What’s Coming to the Seeds and Soil Catalog
Every growing season teaches us something, and 2026 gave us plenty of lessons.
It was a challenging year on the farm, and we didn’t add a huge number of new varieties to the Seeds and Soil catalog. Instead, much of our focus went into growing, trialing, harvesting, and selecting varieties that make sense for gardeners here in Alaska.
That has always been one of the most important parts of what we do.
A variety can sound wonderful in a seed catalog, but growing in Alaska is different. Our cool soils, short season, long summer days, rapidly changing fall weather, and need for dependable food storage all influence which varieties deserve space in an Alaska garden.
This year brought us several varieties we’re especially excited about.
Spacemaster Cucumber: An Outdoor Cucumber for Alaska
One of our favorite successes this season was Spacemaster Cucumber.
Growing cucumbers outdoors in Alaska can be challenging. Cucumbers love warmth, and many varieties are better suited to a greenhouse or high tunnel in our climate.
Spacemaster gives Alaska gardeners another option.
It is a compact, relatively early cucumber that produces full-size slicing cucumbers on much shorter vines than traditional varieties.
Most importantly for us, we grew it outdoors in Alaska.
That is exactly the kind of variety we want in the Seeds and Soil catalog: something that gives gardeners another opportunity to successfully grow food without necessarily needing a greenhouse.
The compact plants are also well suited to raised beds, smaller gardens, containers, and gardeners who simply don’t want cucumber vines taking over an entire bed.
For Alaska gardeners looking for an outdoor slicing cucumber, Spacemaster is one we are very excited to offer.
Tom Thumb Popcorn: Yes, We Grew Popcorn in Alaska
One of the most fun crops we grew this season was Tom Thumb Popcorn.
Growing corn in Alaska is already an adventure. Growing corn long enough for the kernels to fully mature for popcorn adds another challenge entirely.
But that is exactly why we wanted to try it.
Tom Thumb is a compact popcorn variety with a relatively short growing season, which makes it especially interesting for northern gardens.
We successfully grew and harvested it here in Alaska this year, and we are now finishing the drying and seed work from the crop.
There is something incredibly satisfying about growing a crop most people don’t associate with Alaska and proving that, with the right variety and growing conditions, it can be done.
Sugar Ann Snap Pea
We are also adding Sugar Ann Snap Pea, an early snap pea that makes a lot of sense for Alaska gardens.
Peas already thrive in our cool spring and early summer weather, and early varieties allow us to begin harvesting even sooner.
Sugar Ann stays relatively compact, produces sweet edible pods, and is an excellent option for fresh eating straight from the garden.
For short-season growers, early maturity matters, and Sugar Ann fits nicely into the kind of vegetable varieties we look for when adding something new to the Seeds and Soil catalog.
More Carrots for Alaska Gardens
We expanded our carrot collection this year with Longue Rouge Sang.
Carrots simply belong in an Alaska garden.
Our long summer days and cool temperatures can produce exceptionally sweet roots, and carrots also give northern gardeners something equally important: a crop that stores well.
Longue Rouge Sang is an old French heirloom with deeply colored roots and beautiful red-purple shoulders that blend into orange toward the center.
A Small Kohlrabi Offering
We will also have a small offering of kohlrabi seed available this season. Biennial barassica seed is challenging in Alaska even during the best winters, we are very lucky we were able to keep these crops growing through multiple wind storms and power outages.
Kohlrabi is another crop that fits naturally into a northern garden. It enjoys cooler weather and produces a crisp, swollen stem with a mild flavor somewhere between cabbage, broccoli stem, and a very mild turnip.
It can be eaten fresh, sliced into salads, roasted, sautéed, or stored for later use.
Our quantity will be limited this year, but we are excited to have some available.
Cupcakes Cosmos Are Back
Cupcakes Cosmos are back in stock.
These are one of those flowers that almost don’t look real when they bloom.
Instead of the traditional flat cosmos flower, many Cupcakes blooms form delicate fused petals that create a bowl or teacup shape.
They are whimsical, beautiful in the garden, and especially pretty as a cut flower.
We are very happy to have them returning to the Seeds and Soil flower collection.
This Was the Year of the Winter Tomato
Perhaps the biggest focus of our growing season wasn’t a new variety at all.
It was winter tomatoes.
Food storage matters differently in Alaska.
Our gardens can produce an enormous amount of food during a very concentrated growing season. But once September and October arrive, the question changes from What can we grow? to How long can we keep eating what we grew?
That is what makes storage tomatoes so interesting.
Winter tomatoes, or long-keeping tomatoes, are varieties selected for their ability to continue ripening and storing after harvest.
Instead of growing only tomatoes meant to be eaten immediately during August and September, we can also grow tomatoes specifically intended to extend the harvest into fall and winter.
For Alaska gardeners, that has enormous potential.
A tomato that can store for months is more than just another tomato variety. It becomes part of an Alaska food-storage system.
This year we put considerably more focus on winter tomatoes because we believe they deserve a much larger place in northern gardens.
We want to grow vegetables that feed us in July and August.
But we also want to grow vegetables that are still feeding us in November, December, January, and beyond.
Cinderella Pumpkin — We’re Still Waiting
There may be one more addition.
We grew Cinderella Pumpkin this year, and right now we are waiting to see whether the pumpkins and seed have enough time to fully mature.
That is farming in Alaska.
Sometimes the catalog has to wait for the plants.
If the seed reaches full maturity and meets our standards, you may see Cinderella Pumpkin added to the upcoming Seeds and Soil catalog.
If it doesn’t, we’ll try again.
We would rather wait another season than offer seed we are not confident in.
Growing Seeds for Alaska
Our catalog will probably never contain hundreds and hundreds of varieties. That is intentional. We are much more interested in finding vegetables, herbs, and flowers that have a reason to be here. An early pea. A cucumber that can grow outside. A popcorn that can mature during an Alaska summer. A tomato that can still be sitting in storage months after the garden has frozen. Carrots and other storage crops that help fill the pantry. And flowers beautiful enough that we simply want to grow them again.
That is what we are working toward as we harvest, clean, test, and package this year’s seed.
The 2027 Seeds and Soil catalog is officially underway.
And after a very long growing season, it feels pretty good to finally be able to say that.
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