For UAF alumna, it’s basically about basil
August 17, 2010
907-474-5042
8/13/10
For Gretchen Kerndt farming started with basil and grew from there. Kerndt, 51, hails from Iowa where her father was big on gardening. One of 10 children in the family, she did her share of helping tend the vegetable patch. After studying animal health in Denver, she worked as a veterinary technician until she got tired of working indoors with sick animals and took up landscaping.
She arrived in Alaska in 1981 and Fairbanks in 1985, where she enrolled at UAF and earned a degree in natural resources management. Past career highlights include working for the Division of Agriculture and being executive director for the Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service.
When Kerndt started growing things as a business in 1996 she found she had a knack for producing the popular, pungent herb, basil. This proved surprising to her. “Here I am growing a subtropical plant in a subarctic environment,” she said. “I sure had an incredible plethora of basil,” she said. Thus began the age of her “riding the wave of people’s understanding of the medicinal properties of herbs.”
As consumers became more interested in their own health, Kerndt found opportunities to help educate them about the good qualities of herbs. “My motto is growing good food to feed good people doing good things,” she said. Pausing while loading up her wares at the Tanana Valley Farmers’ Market on a recent Wednesday afternoon, Kerndt added, “I know that sounds corny, but oh well.”
In addition to selling fresh vegetables, specialty herbs and herb products like herbal vinegars, seasoning mixes and gift sets at the farmers’ market, Kerndt operates a 55-member community supported agriculture business. She also grows a beautiful assortment of flowers just for fun and sells vegetables to local restaurants. All her crops are grwon on three acres in the Pearl Creek area.
The value-added products came about when Kerndt had an abundance of basil left over one season. She suddenly had to get creative about marketable items that the basil could be used in. “I stuffed everything into bottles and called it good,” Kerndt said. An avid agriculturist, Kerndt professes to enjoy everything about her job except the long hours. In the summer she works seven days a week, 14 hours a day. “That’s pretty crazy,” she said. “But I know I get January, February and March off.”
During the winter she travels. And even at the height of the season if she needs a break during the day she’ll go bicycling, swimming or fishing. “Some days in August I say I’m not going to do this next year,” she said. “Remind me of that next April when I ‘m buying seeds.” The challenges are the weather and finding varieties that grow well in the Fairbanks’ climate. There are always experiments to try, such as hoop houses and row covers. “Farming is not a lucrative business; it’s a passion,” Kerndt said. “I will never go hungry.”
Homegrown Agriculture is a column provided as a public service by the UAF School of Natural Resources and Agricultural Sciences. For information on publishing the column, contact Nancy Tarnai at 907-474-5042 or e-mail her at ntarnai@alaska.edu.