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Peony venture blooms at homestead

July 31, 2014

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Nancy Tarnai
907-474-5042
7/29/14

History abounds at Northern Lights Peonies off Chena Hot Springs Road, but, where hay fields once thrived, nearly 5,000 peony plants now grow.

The Herning family homesteaded the land in the 1940s, and it means a lot to current owners John and Kim Herning that they still farm there.

The couple met in high school in Fairbanks and married in 1978. John’s dream job as a pilot with American Airlines took them to Texas, where Kim ran an interior decorating franchise and raised the couple’s two sons.

Two years ago, when American Airlines offered John early retirement, the Hernings returned to Alaska. “We always knew we would come home,” Kim said.

“The thing that started our peony dreams was trying to figure out what to grow on our land to make some money so that John could take an early retirement,” Kim said. The couple considered growing potatoes and distilling them into vodka.

“It would have been going back to the original roots,” Kim said. “Neither of us drinks vodka, and thinking about dealing with all of the red tape that operating a distillery would require kind of stopped that plan. Then John stumbled upon some articles about Pat (University of Alaska Fairbanks Professor Pat Holloway) and her peonies. This was something that we both felt we could do, something we both got very excited about.”

The Hernings researched peonies while still in Texas, calling growers in Alaska to learn all they could. “They were helpful and gave us good information,” Kim said. John prepared the hay field the summer of 2012 and ordered peony roots in the spring of 2013. They started out with a huge vision of planting 10,000 roots, but they scaled back once they realized their sons weren’t interested in farming.

The first year, they planted 2,750 roots on one acre, and, this year, 2,000 more on a second acre. “Things keep changing,” Kim said. Their crops include 10 varieties of peonies, mostly whites with a mix of pinks and reds.

It will be two more years before the blossoms are ready to sell, and the couple plans to build a chiller to hold the buds. “This is a whole lot more work than we thought it would be,” Kim said. “We’re constantly learning. You think you have something figured out and something pops up.”

While the couple works together on their new venture, Kim is quick to admit John puts in more hours. “The weeding is constant,” she said. “John does the string trimmer and I weed by hand.”

Weeds and weather are proving to be the greatest challenges. “We print a spread sheet out and figure things out but we pray for snow, then we pray for rain, then we pray for the rain to stop,” Kim said. They’ve also had to deal with pest problems this year but got good advice from Holloway and fellow members of the Alaska Peony Growers Association and Arctic Alaska Peonies, a cooperative.

The Hernings also maintain a large vegetable garden. Kim, who is a proponent of the national program Plant a Row, will share the harvest with the Fairbanks Community Food Bank. She invites all local growers to participate along with her, simply giving some of what they produce to people who may not otherwise have fresh food to enjoy.

Kim is active in the “GMO-Free” group in Fairbanks. “We try to educate the public about GMOs (genetically modified organisms) and try to get them thinking and we want labeling,” she said.

Being outside and enjoying nature are what Kim enjoys about farming. “It’s real peaceful,” she said. “We are our own bosses and we make our own hours.”

As Kim looks out at the family land fondly, she recalls John’s late parents. “I like to think they would be very happy with what we are doing on their homestead,” she said. “His mom was known for her sense of humor, and I just hear her saying 'What took you so long to come home and figure this out?'”

Contact info: kherning@acsalaska.net.

This column is provided as a service by the ������ School of Natural Resources and Extension and the Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station. Nancy Tarnai is the school and station’s public information officer. She can be reached at ntarnai@alaska.edu.