We Need  Your Help      At Denali Seed Company we work hard to provide gardeners with the best varieties available for arctic and subarctic growing conditions.  The only way to know if a variety will preform well in Alaska is to grow it, put it in trial, under Alaskan growing conditions.  Many of the new introductions, All American selections and varieties that are popular in other parts of the country do not like our cold soils and long days.  Many of the new varieties appear promising for Alaska, so we trial them, but only a few are worthy of being recommended to Alaskan gardeners.  Because of the extensive amount of testing required to assure success in the arctic and sub-arctic gardens we rely on our Alaskan gardening friends for assistance in our testing program.
     We would like Alaskan gardeners to tell us about their successes with varieties they have experimented with.  There are many unknown "gems" hiding in gardens all over Alaska.   Call us if you would like to share your knowledge on the hidden gems in your garden.  We look at many new possibilities each year and are always willing to include your favorites on our list.  The information about your favorite variety that will help us determine if we might offer it is: 1. How long have you grown the variety; 2. What varieties have you compared the results of your variety to; and  3. Where did you get the seed for the variety at, so we can determine if that seed would be available to us.  We are unable to fulfill the needs of every special situation, but we try to help as many people as possible when it comes to supplying hard to find items.  We search the four corners of the globe and import varieties that are not common in the US and some of the special purpose varieties we grow ourselves.  We offer varieties on our seed list that are not available any where else in the world.
     We need to know our customers wishes, unless we have their input we don't know when we are falling short.  What do they need that we don't have?  What area do we need to put more emphasis on, in our trials?  In our customers opinion, are we weak in a certain area, if so which area, vegetables, herbs or flowers, annual or perennial?  Are there ethnic needs in Alaska that we are not fulfilling?  Let us know what our customers want us to add to our line, what their thoughts on our products are and what we can do to better fulfill their needs.
     We wish to have Alaskan gardeners share with us their successes.  Our goal is to visit as  many Alaskan gardens as possible to share, examine and photograph those successes.  Recently we started our "photographed in Alaska" campaign using locally photographed specimens on our seed packets and would like to add more Alaskan gardens to the Denali gallery.
     We are looking for volunteers to participate in our trials.  We get samples of many new and promising varieties and we need people to grow them and help evaluate their potential for Alaskan gardens.  The University of Alaska, Fairbanks has an "All America" trial garden but because of staff limitations are unable to test many of the new varieties that become available each year.  During the past twenty years we have made acquaintances with seedmen from all parts of the country and because of their interest in Alaska they send seed samples of varieties that they feel may have potential in an arctic and subarctic environment.   Each year we receive many more samples than we have gardens to plant them in.
     Volunteers are needed from all parts of Alaska that are willing to spend the time needed to plant, care for and help evaluate trials.  These volunteers are greatly appreciated and are doing a great service to fellow gardeners in Alaska by helping make new varieties available.  For more details on the requirements to get seed for testing and how to get started  contact us by e-mail at seeds@denaliseed.com